attack at the boston marathon. >> boston's police commissioner now confirms one of the suspects is dead. the one in the black hat from the fbi surveillance video released just yesterday. the suspect in the white hat is the one who remains at large. he's in a gray sweatshirt and considered armed and extremely dangerous. >> one mit police officer is dead in the violence and another police officer severely wounded. police are going door-to-door trying to find the suspect and warning people to stay in their homes and not to let anyone in their homes, unless they are police officers. it all began when the suspects shot and killed an mit police officer in the head and then tried to rob a 7-eleven. pete williams reports they later car-jacked a suv near the mit campus and keeping the car's owner at gun point and releasing the person unharmed later.

>> police followed that car to watertown as is in lockdown right now. the suspects at that point threw explosive devices from their car. at some point during the standoff, they had at least one pressure cooker bomb similar to the ones used in the marathon bombing. one suspect killed in the shoot-out. the one in the black hat. he reportedly then was run over and when police approached his body, they discovered an ied strapped to his chest. witnesses reporting hearing explosions, massive gun battle between the suspects and police. here is what adam kitzenberg told us not long ago. >> i went to the window and right outside of our apartment, there were two shooters in between a sedan and a black mercedes-benz suv. and they were in between these two cars taking cover behind the black suv, shooting down our street which is laurel street and they were shooting westward towards what looked to be about

six -- six to ten watertown police department vehicles. they were shooting about what seemed to be 70 to 80 yards down the street utilizing handguns. and while they were engaging in gunfire they were using explosions. it looked to resemble a pressure cooker what i've seen online the last few days. i saw them light this bomb and they threw it towards the officers and only got 15 to 20 yards down so it wasn't very close to the officers but it really created a significant die coy, in other words, smoke covered our entire street and, at that point, one of the shooters ran towards the officers while still engaging in gunfire and while still shooting ate him a few seconds later, the second shooter got back into the suv and turned it around and went full speed into the police

officers. >> at the end of the chase, authorities shot and killed one suspect. he was run over and when police approached his body, they discovered an ied strapped to his chest. police also say that the streets, as a result of this chase, are littered with unexploded devices and depending on their ability to render them safe and to arrest the second suspect, they are freezing transit and locking down the town of watertown and the adjoining area. once again, literally police are saying don't drive in the streets and don't leave your home and don't try to take mass transit because it will not be running. >> eric is joining us on the phone. help us with the time line here from the ground there, from the moment we saw those photographs at the press conference with the fbi yesterday afternoon until now. 6:03 boston time this morning. >> it's been an incredible event.

really 20 hours in boston it was 11:00 a.m. thursday that we had the prayer service with the president who offered very moving remarks and it was about five hours after that that authorities relieved photos of the two suspects, close-up photos of the two guys in the hats and really it was just a few hours later on thursday evening when there was a 10:30 p.m. shooting at mit that turned out to be the shooting that wounded a police officer. i was at that scene quickly afterwards and there was a lot of police presence. almost as much as you could possibly imagine just crewsers lining the street in both directions cordoned off a big area and dozens and dozens of crewse cruisers and an hour i was there they started racing a different direction which was unusual and we found out that was because of the carjacking. i followed some of the cruisers past the site where they dropped

off the carjacking victim out to watertown. i got to watertown just after what residents told me they heard was shooting that sounded like pop, pop, pop, and some loud, you know, fireworks noises. in fact, one cab driver who was coming off a shift told me he thought -- it's weird, what a weird hour and weird season for fireworks but he started to head towards the fireworks and people called out their windows and said that is gunfire. he saw cops and was turned away. when i got there around 1:00 a.m., i saw probably a dozen police officers pretty soon after i got to east watertown draw their guns and then others sort of push back the crowd. it's not clear to me what i saw then if they were drawing their guns on the suspect or whether it was a false alarm, but certainly it was -- everybody was tense and on edge and it was a scene with, you know, scores of law enforcement, state, federal, you know, bomb teams, s.w.a.t., you name it, they were there.

a big perimeter setup for a manhunt to find the second suspect. >> eric, thank you. willie, when you get a sense of the danger right now that faces watertown at this very moment after all that went down last night and the killing of an mit police officer, the car-jacking, the robbing, the bombs in the streets, the ied attached to this body, you get a sense of the suspect. you get a sense in terms of what law enforcement was able to piece together since the bombing in boston where you had pieces of pressure cookers and things that made you think they may be homemade devices and this may be home-grown and this made a little rudimentary, if i may, but now you find out from the work that they have done and all of the pictures and the video they have put together, you find out that they stood there to watch. they stood there to watch after the bombing. that says something. secondly you find out they have been in the united states as long as a year. may have military experience. and this is just a quote from reports that we're bringing in

from the law enforcement, may have international ties. you can't put together that information and draw a profile but it begins to lead to a certain sophistication that these two men were and one that is on the run are so extremely dangerous and they are full-fled terrorists. in the town of watertown and the surrounding areas, at this point, will have to be on lockdown until they can figure out if they can get this guy encompassed, circled, or killed or in custody. >> what we are seeing or describing this morning is the definition of terror. the suspect on the run has the entire western suburbs of boston locked inside their homes. no one allowed out on the street. we have heard police say don't let anyone in your home unless they are a police officer who identifies himself as such and shows identification, identifying as such. the transportation system, as we have said this morning, now just locked down into boston. that's the mass bay transportation authority, mbta

is locked down and no getting out on public transportation in boston. this is the definition of terror. one of the suspects dead, another on the run. >> joe scarborough is standing by now as we watch everything that has happened throughout the night and cover this story as it still breaks. your thoughts, joe. >> well, you're right. i mean, obviously, these terrorists were brazened and callus and bordering on evil and trying to figure out the weeks and months to figure out what their context is overseas. if you look at just what happened over the frantic hours preceding day break in boston and the sun is about to come up there right now, their actions didn't actually come straight out of the al qaeda playbook. they held up a 7-eleven store. pedestrian at best.

as you said, mika, after the attack, they stayed in plain view. certainly they had to know that with everything, all of the new media out there and the camera phones, they certainly had to know that their pictures would be picked up. they were picked up after all. a tragic shooting on m issuing t campus and all of this obviously led to it. as pete williams said to you 30 minutes ago, it wasn't anything law enforcement authorities did last night. it was their own sloppy behavior, their own reckless behavior, their own tragic behavior that brought this to a head this morning. now, that said, pete williams is saying also that they certainly have more information on these two suspects because they were already on the list of possible terrorists and so, obviously,

they were -- it would have taken more time to get to these guys but, obviously, their behavior over the last 12 hours precipitated this entire crisis that has watertown and most of boston in a lockdown. mika? >> we will be joined on the phone by a former philadelphia police chief john timmony. joe, add to your comments. in some ways, extremely pedestrian these guys robbing a 7-eleven and if you look at what that he did if all reports are true at boston. an attack that wanted an international platform and got it by hitting the boston marathon, a place where people from 96 countries around the world celebrate together and then you look at the suspect with the ied strapped to his chest. these are people willing and planning to die in the process of whatever carnage that they can ensue upon our country. there is clear ties to the way terrorists act on a high level,

if i could say that. the whole thing is still playing out right now. we have live pictures of watertown, massachusetts, where you see law enforcement authorities going door-to-door, trying to comb through every corner of that town, trying to find the second suspect in the boston marathon bombing. we are joined on the phone by philadelphia police chief john timmony. as we look at these pictures, john, the painstaking process of trying to run down a killer. tell us what you know about the approach here as they have to try and lock down an entire swath of territory and find this guy. >> yeah, well, obviously, you may have heard the chief ed davis speaking to reporters and making no bones about it these are terrorists. the fbi has more information than we have presently. one police officer is dead and another seriously injured and

the other guy looks like a suicide that he was going to be taken out. he didn't want to live. the second guy gets away. what we have here even though the body count may not be big in terms of the 9/11, you do have a spectacular event that garnered worldwide attention. they have managed the last four or five days to terror the new england communities, specifically boston, and continues tonight where you see whole communities unfortunately having to be locked down until they come up with this guy. it's not over yet. this guy clearly poses a threat. we know he is armed with guns but he may have other ied explosives and may have boobytraps set up for law enforcement. it's clear that the first guy dies and looking like the second guy would be more than willing to die also. the police have their hands filled right now. i think what is the people, even

though it's an inconvenience and they may miss work, for the good, the people need to shelter in place and you don't need civilians and pedestrians walking through the neighborhood and causing undo concern. they will get to this guy but it has to be done properly and painstakingly and house-to-house search. >> chief, it's willie geist. can you talk about how exceptional and unusual it is and what it would take for you to suggest shutting down public transportation around a major city and also locking down, at least by my count, seven communities in the suburbs? >> yeah, it really is. it's an extraordinary measure. most times it's usually just a neighbor. often, we will close down, you know, a bus line or a subway line just to confine people to an area so there is no escape route. clearly, boston and the suburbs, it's not like new york in

certain respects. a lot more means to escape in routes. whether or not this guy ditched one car and now has a second car, and may be trying to escape. if he is not holed up in a building maybe he is making good of his escape by car or by foot. unfortunately, if you will expae expand this drag net. i know they have a lot more information than we have presently and they know the extent of the threat. number two, the guy has already killed one police officer and seriously wounded another. so this stuff is serious. it's deadly. and, you know, it may inconvenience people, but it's well worth it that you minimize any further innocent citizens from getting killed or wounded. >> absolutely. chief, thank you very much. with us from watertown, massachusetts, a block away from

where this all went down, nbc correspondent katie tur. she is around the corner from where the shooting took place. what can you tell us? >> reporter: than issue of national security. the police are are calling it. a couple of others, waltham and belmont and trying to find the guy in the white hat. i'm around the corner from where that shoot-out happened when the police cornered the two suspects at the time. it's down the street and around the corner. witnesses say the suspects got out of the car and began shooting furiously at police officers. the local reporters here that saw this say the same thing. they say 60 rounds of gunfire but we believe a lot more. he heard the sound only from that event and it was quite spectacular. also some bombs going off. police say they were able to kill one of the suspects and when they approached his body he

was actually wearing an ied and that is just around the corner. they do say there is a number of undetonated devices there as well. the second suspect they say got in a mercedes he car-jacked earlier in the night and fled. they don't know where the suspect is now. he is the guy in the white hat and they believe he placed explosives along the marathon route. police are going door-to-door in this community and asking everybody to stay inside. if anybody comes to their door that is not a police officer, they are asking you to call 911 immediately. they are warning that the second suspect is armed and he is dangerous. he has already proven that up to this point. so this entire city, the suburbs around boston, even boston is in a lockdown right now. they have canceled the subways, rails and bus services and have asked anybody who have gone there before they canceled it to go home and asking people to stay inside and businesses are closed and one all nonessential people off the streets so they

have a better chance of finding this guy. they don't want him to pose danger to the people of boston or of the suburbs and so, of course, this is a very serious situation. it's causing a lot of anxiety. you do see people walking around and giving everybody a second look to make sure they are not seeing somebody or seeing the second suspect. the police have locked down this area 20-block radius and stopping everybody that comes through. we did see a couple of people while it was still dark out walking alone and the cops treated them very suspiciously. what are you doing around here? shining flashlights in their eyes. as the sun comes up and people are coming out of their houses the police last thing they want them to do. they want them to stay inside and worried as people wake up they may not know what is going on and may not have turned their television or radio on so trying to get the message as quickly and clearly and as adamantly as they possibly can. >> katy, thank you so much. joe, if you can imagine, first of all, just the task of trying to lock down such a large area

with people living there, some who may know what is going on and some who don't, trying to make sure that everybody is safe and can you imagine the intensity that law enforcement feels right now after the terror and carnage these two suspects have reportedly incurred upon our society? >> and one extremely dangerous suspect still on the loose. watertown is completely shut down. the entire transit system across boston shut down. harvard is shut down today. mit shut down today. businesses told to stay closed in areas all around watertown. waltham, belmont, brighton, cambridge, neighborhoods around the area all res tenths told to stay home. we all know, mika, willie, mike, who i'm sure is up in boston right now watching all of this.

boston is an open city. it's a city that, you know, is great to walk around. it's a city that is of a lot of small neighborhoods. great communities. it's almost unimaginable for us spending time up there that, right now, it is, mika, in complete lockdown and it will remain in lockdown until this suspect that is still armed and dangerous is found. there were reports 30 minutes ago that they believe he may be cornered. pete williams suggested that some reports that they may have him in a building, but there has been no confirmation of that over the past 30 minutes. so there's a question as to whether that information is accurate at this time or not. >> we have got michael isikoff, national investigative correspondent with us who is up in boston the last several days. what are you seeing on the ground, michael?

>> while ago we saw police cars with sirens driving down here on arsenal street. no indication whether that means they have got a possible location for the suspect or not. we had heard earlier some information on police scanner had indicated that he might be in some office complex or at least he triggered a sensor, or a sensor had been triggered in an office complex that led police to think he might be there. but we have had no confirmation of that. and certainly that does not square with information we just got a little while ago from the state emergency management chief saying that all public transit in the boston area was being shut down today and everybody in these areas should stay inside, all businesses in watertown shut down. that doesn't sound like they have any confidence that they know exactly where this individual is at this point.

look. the sequence of events here is pretty chilling and you take the totality from the boston marathon to improvised explosive devices that were used repeatedly tonight. by the way, as i'm talking, i'm hearing sirens, police sirens going as a police car is going in the opposite direction from which all of the other were going a few minutes ago so make of that what you will. i was mentioning improvised explosive devices from that black mercedes suv car-jacked and one of the suspects had an ied strapped to his body when he was taken into custody. >> we want to -- a lot of people waking up at 6:21 in the morning on the east coast. as you see the two men we were introduced to by the fbi by way of photograph yesterday at a press conference known as suspect number one in the black

hat, number two there in the white hat. suspect number one is now confirmed dead in a shoot-out. it is suspect number two, the man with the white hat there who is still on the run and who has boston and the western suburbs essentially locked down right now. michael, you've been following this investigation closely all week. what can you tell us about what happened between the time we saw those photographs publicly yesterday at the press conference and that shoot-out last night? >> reporter: well, here is the sequence as we understand it at this point. about 10:20 last night a robbery at a 7-eleven in cambridge. one of these -- the suspects at large from the boston marathon bombing who is believed to have committed that 7-eleven robbery and after that, an mit police officer was shot and killed in the head. the two suspects then car-jacked

this black mercedes suv. referred to before. and keep the victim inside the driver of the vehicle with them for half an hour as they drive through cambridge. they eventually let him out in cambridge. police began to chase the vehicle. a chase that takes them to watertown and at watertown, there is this firefight. the ieds are hurled prosecute the vehicle at police. bullets are flying. one of the suspects -- and that is the one in the black hat that we saw yesterday in the video relieved by fbi. he is critically injured and taken into custody. the other suspect, the man with the white cap, gets away. he is on the loose. he drives through police, according to eyewitness accounts, just actually drove the vehicle right at police and

drove right through them and he's the object of this massive manhunt right now. police are quite explicit. he is the man in the white cap, wanted for the boston marathon bombing. we believe he has international connections we believe he and the other one are foreign nationals and have military experience. it's a very chilling situation at this point. >> we go to nbc's kerry sanders who has been on the scene several hours now. i can't imagine the sights and sounds that watertown is waking up to today being locked down and literally frozen as law enforcement authorities and armored vehicle pour through the streets looking for the second suspect. what can you tell us, kerry? >> right now, those in their homes are told not to come out. over my shoulder in the distance you can see part of a field

forest with state officers here. massachusetts state police have been brought in. a similarly sized group of officers have already deployed off down the side here and moving into neighborhoods working through the backyards. they are supplementing teams who have been working through the backyards of homes up in this area overnight. we were up there for some time. the officer said they are pretty sure the suspect would not be out in the street but, more likely if he were there he would be hiding behind one of the houses maybe in the shadows and telling the residents stay put and slowly moving up. many of the officers overnight not as heavily armed as these guys. this their weapons. this team that has come through in daylight likely if there is a suspect hiding are going to have an advantage now that the suspect had at night which is the cover of darkness. there were some devices their found and unclear if they were bombs but we did see the eod

disposal team come in here a half hour ago and came through with a vehicle that can take the actual devices with one of those mechanical arms and place it inside a contained cylinder so if it were to be detonated it would be detonated inside a piece of equipment that protects the community. overnight they brought in a armored personnel carrier and actually kind of parked it kitty-corner to the devices so it could act as a blast shield. we did see one of the transit buses come in earlier today, pick up some of the residents and take them out so that they can get out of there. it's pretty clear that there is fair amount of people that don't know what to do. joe, mika? willie? >> yeah, kerry, you know, it just -- wow. i'm trying to imagine chief timmony did assure us in his knowledge of locking down towns and cities and experience with

it that they will find this guy. at the same time, when you look at the sights we are seeing right now, armored vehicles poring through the streets. the chief of police begging people to stay home. the possibility this guy might slip away is sickening. >> when you consider what he is alleged to have done already. his alleged complete disregard for human life no telling what he will do when cornered. >> kerry, i know you've been there since the early hours of the morning. have people been out at all or are they pretty much staying in their homes and it's just you alone there on the street? >> reporter: one woman was a witness to the whole shoot-out. i bumped into her. officers asked her to sit to the side. i was coming out of the area. sat down and started talking to her and it was cold overnight. i had my hands in my pocket. the officer doesn't he didn't know who i was and told me to get my hands out of my pockets

and make sure i was not a threat and giving a sense of how high the tension is here. that calmed down and when he asked me to leave and kept her back there and wants her to be a material witness whatever she saw or heard. so, yeah, i started actually, i guess what was it? 10:30 or so when i went over to mit when the officer responded to a disturbance, the officer from mit who went there and he was shot multiple times and died, so i was there and then had been throughout the whole night over here watching these developments. quite frankly, i think the overwhelming number of officers that are here from so many different agencies, they have this area blanketed. the real question is the suspect still in this area? if he is, i'm sure they are going to find him. the real question is has he somehow been able to squirrel his way out of the neighborhood and make his way to a main thoroughfare and disappear? >> they are brazen and you have to wonder. nbc kerry sanders, thank you

very much. if you have law enforcement drawing their weapons on kerry sanders, that sums it up. they are on such high alert and probably emotionally frayed after having lost a fellow officer in the same spirit of what they do and when that happens it takes things to a whole another level. let alone the fact the guys are extreme dangerous and what they found out about them since honing in from the boston marathon boston. number one what they did at the boston marathon. number two the scores of explosives that lined the street that they threw out of a car. the ied strapped to one of their bodies. this is a full-fledged terrorism situation, willie. >> pete williams tells us he has new information so let's get to po pete. >> we are trying to get more information who they are. we still don't have their names but we are told now that they are legal permanent residents,

that they have been in the country for at least a year. and we have heard now from several sources that they are possibly from turkey or chechen refugees that went to turkey. a substantial chechen population in turkey and that seems to be the part of the world where they are from. they don't appear to have been student at mit, despite the concentration of activity that started overnight at mit. as we say, we don't know their names. they are apparently people that the fbi had been interested in for a while in the investigation of this bombing, among other things that were potentially on the list of people they were trying to run down. it's important to, i think, remind everyone that all of this unfolded not because the fbi or anybody else was moving in to arrest them. but because apparently they felt the heat after five hours of

having their pictures broadcast around the world. it starts with a robbery and then it goes on from there. >> nbc's pete williams, thanks very much. i know we had to lose pete as we all are trying to get information from our sources. he'll be back with more later. again, at 30 past the hour, 6:30 on the east coast. we are following a massive breaking story after a night of breaking news which started with reports of explosions and a massive gunfight between two men ultimately in watertown, massachusetts. is there a full-on manhunt in watertown, massachusetts, that is connected to the terror attacks at the boston marathon. boston's police commissioner confirms one of the suspects is dead. in the two pictures that we have of these suspects, the one in the black hat, as you can see, dead. the one in the white hat still wanted, still on the run. they culled together pictures of

these men from surveillance video and iphone videos and all different types of video that came in from the boston marathon where they were able to hone in on the suspects approaching the scene and carrying those black bags that had the bombs inside. the suspect in the white hat as i mentioned remains at large and believed to be in a gray sweatshirt and is considered armed and extremely dangerous and that is, of course, why watertown is locked down right now. and surrounding towns as well. in all of the violence that happened through the night, one mit police officer is dead. another officer is severely wounded. police, right now, in full armored gear and armored veked are going door-to-door trying to find the second suspect. they are stopping people on the streets. they are asking people to take their hands out of their pockets. they are warning people to stay in their homes and not let

anyone in unless they happen to, very clearly, be police. at all began when suspects shot and killed an mit police officer earlier in the night and then tried to rob a 7-eleven. pete williams reports they later car-jacked a mercedes suv near the mit campus and keeping the car's owner at gunpoint and then later relieving the person unharmed. police followed the car to watertown and when the suspects apparently threw explosive devices from the car at some point during the standoff they had at least one pressure cooker bomb similar to the one used in the boston marathon bombing. >> in terms of what we know, pete williams just told us about the suspects they are legal, permanent residents of the united states who have been here at least a year. pete reporting it doesn't look like they were students at mit, despite the fact this is where most of this began in that area. >> may have military experience. >> we are not sure yet of their country of origin so we won't report on that.

harvard has been closed today and mit is, obviously, closed and emerson college is closed and no subways and buses or commuter rail going in and out of boston is closed. at least seven suburban mur communities locked down. watertown, newton and belmont and waltham among the cities. law enforcement in full s.w.a.t. gear sweeping home-to-home, door-to-door looking for a suspect in monday's marathon bombing. >> it's turned into a war zone of sorts. chief timmony of philadelphia is telling us to do what you're seeing and go door-to-door and approach people one by one. but also to use loud speakers in the streets to let people to literally let people know in no uncertain terms that they cannot leave their homes. they also did have some reports

overnight there might be a building that they might know that the suspect is in there but if he slipped away, who knows. the hope is they can find this guy as soon as possible. let's go live now to lester holt who joins us. i believe he is in walkertown. lester? >> i'm working with a pretty experienced crew and all of us are shaking our heads not having seen anything like this. an entire community shut down and transit system and schools shut down for the search of one suspect but what a dangerous suspect he is. suspect number two the white hat man from the fbi photo on the loose. they believe in this area in this community which is why nothing is coming in or getting out. we got here in the wee hours of the morning. there were still some movement and shortly after the shooting and movement in and out but they have essentially locked down this community. asking people to shelter in place. don't come to their door. if someone comes to their door, they should call 911.

we have been watching not far from us via another camera we have seen s.w.a.t. teams moving methodically through neighborhoods which is why they don't want anybody on the streets and they don't want accidents or mistakes or distractions. on a hair trigger right now. the suspect has proved himself time and time again extremely dangerous. they have to accept the possibility he has explosives strapped on him. certainly weapons after that ferocious shoot-out that we witness early this morning here. right now it's a situation where this area is paralyzed. it's certainly shocked by what happens on monday. it's been saddened. we were at the service yesterday where the president spoke, but right now, it is a region that is essentially paralyzed as this search goes on. mika? >> lester, a lot of people in watertown were given first word of what was going down there by the shoot-out that you were talking about, which wasn't

quick and was extremely loud and powerful. we are also told that the streets are being cleaned up because throughout the chase, these guys were throwing grenades and other explosives outside the window of the car that they were using to flee. the shoot-out is described by one witness who had literally bullets coming through his windows as extremely powerful. certainly people in walktertown are waking up to the news or knowing that something extremely serious is going down in their town. we have some video from the shoot-out. is it from youtube, alex? it's from youtube to get a sense of what happened in watertown over night. let's take a look at that and i'll get out the other side, lester.

[ gunfire ] >> there is explosions and gunfire going on down the street. >> this kept going. blers lester to get a sense of how dangerous this is. they did not shoot and kill the first suspect. they drove over him and when they discovered and got closer to his body, they found out that he had an ied attached to his body. so these two suspects were intending to do more harm to our country and to our communities.

the remaining suspect leaves everybody wondering where he'll be and do next. lester? >> certainly this jibes what pete williams has been reporting that these two men may have some military training and some familiarity with explosives beyond just building a pressure cooker bomb and that is the only other reasons they want people off the streets here because there may be unexploded ordinance along the route of that chase. when they find the second suspect it's not just guns they have to worry about. his ability to shoot his way out of it again but the possibility he, too, may have explosives strapped to him. a lot of hard questions to be answered when this all ends and hopefully ends without any further bloodshed but certainly about how they were able to get these kinds of materials and to carry out such an attack. as pete had pointed out this was not the result of a raid, an

attempt to arrest these men. this was borne out of the robbery of an mit police officer and robbery of a sev7-eleven. mit is one of a number of schools closed today. bu and harvard have closed their classes and public schools have also closed. we are learning that amtrak, traffic in and out of south station is being delayed because what we are told is police activity. stepped-up security at the airport which remains open. transit systems shut down. they are cutting off essentially every avenue of escape for not from this neighborhood, from this region right now to apprehend the suspect because he is so extraordinarily dangerous. >> we are getting information we will double confirm about the a.p. where the boston bombers may be from. >> we will double-check on that

before we report it, obviously. mike barnicle joins us on the phone. orient us watertown, massachusetts, where it is and what kind of town it is and what is happening right now. >> watertown, willie, is adjacent to cambridge, massachusetts. if you are on the cambridge side of the road from boston and you go up memorial drive, which runs alongside the charles river, memorial drive leads into mt. auburn street, which leads into the north end of cambridge and then watertown. watertown is a bedroom community. it's quite close to boston. obviously, it's three or four miles from the marathon scene. five or six miles. it's middle class community. very nice homes. a lot of teachers, a lot of professors live there from the various universities surrounding watertown. it's got a nice, good working class population.

it's an interesting community. it's a very diverse community. and it is now the scene of something that i can't recall ever seeing before, an entire community, as lester indicated, shut down, locked down. it's about six miles from where i am now speaking to you and following the police scanner traffic all evening long and into the early morning, this is just -- i can't recall a more incredible story. >> pete, we are looking right now, mike, at military convoy essentially entering watertown, mass. our reporter saw civilian buses and humvees making their way into the town. this is a bedroom community as you told us. it's extraordinary. we talked to the former police chief in miami. he described how it was to see the mtba, the transmit and buses

shut down to the city and have seven of these communities completely locked down. something he said he thought was probably unprecedented in a major city. >> oh, he's undoubtedly right, willie. i mean, what i'm looking at the -- i'm watching you now on the tv. the entire area is shut down. watertown is adjacent to belmont, massachusetts. these are all communities that lead out of boston. watertown, belmont and then next to belmont there is arlington and then lexington. which is, obviously, where patriots day began and was celebrated last monday here in new england, here in boston, massachusetts. >> mika, i want to bring everybody up to speed. mit is closed and harvard and emerson, boston college and bu, u mass boston and suffolk university.

no classes today and asking people to stay inside. >> mike, have you heard from people inside of boston? you have a circle of friends heavily involved to help the victims of the double bombing at the boston marathon, as well as just trying to help boston get through this. here we are again after a especially the president's unifying words yesterday at the interfaith service. it almost felt like a step in the right direction and, yet, here we are looking at watertown and surrounding towns in the boston area community locked down with military humvees moving in. i guess law enforcement officials have no choice. there is no way they can let this terrorist go. it would not be good symbol symbolically on an international level and given what he has done to our country and what he has done to boston and what he has done to police officers in the line of duty, this guy has got to go down. >> yeah. mika. the key thing to remember here

is they have locked an entire city down, watertown, massachusetts, as we have been telling people and they are now going door-to-door, house-to-house. i spoke to someone actively involved in the investigation in this exercise right here about an hour ago and this person is a long time member of law enforcement. there's no foundation in reality for anybody involved in this because this has never been done before, an entire neighborhood have been shut down block-by-block and going block-by-block, home-to-home. an entire city, never been done before. you're absolutely right. the key here is cutting off access to any escape, any escape that this individual might have. there is going to be a lot of information forthcoming once they apprehend this individual one way or another.

a lot of information you now and willie knows that we have not yet dispensed out in the air because we don't want to participate in aiding the escape of this individual. >> what we do know is what went down last night which started, gosh, with the robbing of a 7-eleven if you can believe it. these two suspects span as joe used the word pedestrian to highly skilled when you hear about their backgrounds and what has been reported so far. you hear about the amounts of explosives they were carrying. but starting with robbing a 7-eleven and then a car-jacking and hearing that one of them had an ied attached to their body that they were throwing grenades and explosives out of the car. they clearly wanted to publicly commit another act of carnage and bloodshed and, in some way, make another terrible mark on society. >> that is why this intense manhunt continues this morning, because they don't know what the suspect we have on the right there, that suspect number two in the white hat, they don't know what he has with him.

they don't know what he still is capable of. they don't know what he is intending to do as we go forward here. this, again, unprecedented according to most law enforcement officials. one suspect dead on the left last night. still looking for the one in the white hat this morning. >> what they uncovered as they were putting together all of the pictures from the boston finish line, the video of the bombing taken from cell phones and iphones and blackberries and surveillance video and tv camera video, they had to put all of those photos and videos together to figure out what happened and they did. the two pictures show the men staying there after the bombings happened as people were suffering in the streets and blood was everywhere. these are two sick minds with an intent to do terrible, terrible things to our country. one of them is dead. before the ied attached to his body went off.

thankfully. the other, though, on the run. it's almost impossible to believe he could still be on the run but given what they have been able to do already, these two slippery suspects who now we are hearing, we can report this officially now, nbc news has learned that these two suspects are brothers. they appeared to have lived in cambridge and what else, alex? 19 years old one of them. with a massachusetts driver's license. and the other is still being sought. we are also getting preliminary information on their nationality. we will hold back on that until pete williams gives us his confirmation. the suspected appear to be brothers and one of them is 19 years old and one of them at least having a massachusetts driver's license. is that the one still being sought? 19 years old and has a massachusetts driver's license. the other pieces of information about these suspects that have

come in overnight is they may have military experience and they may have international ties. we are working on that information to confirm it. there is no rush to jum here as as to where they are from on why they might have been doing what they are doing. we will take the information when we get it right. again, suspects are brothers. one of them 19 years old with a massachusetts driver's license and he is the one who is still on the run. he is the one who has caused the town of watertown to be completely locked down. the surrounding areas to be completely locked down, for people to be kept in their homes for mass transit to be shut down. for literally anybody who is on the street to expect to be approached by police and ask their hands to be taken out of their pockets or out of their coats because nobody is going to be in the street right now without a cop or a military official or a law enforcement official approaching them to ask them to why they are there. they don't want anybody out

until this suspect, this 19-year-old from massachusetts or at least with a massachusetts driver's license, is found. there were earlier reports that they had him perhaps circled in a building. they might have identified a building that he was hiding in but we don't have confirmation he is in that building and therefore they can't take any chances at this time. >> mike barnicle, you've been covering the city of boston for decades. you have close sources inside law enforcement there. what can you tell us about what has been happening over the course of these four days since about 2:50 in the afternoon on monday at the boston marathon when those two bombs went off up until about 10:20 last night when the two we learned brothers, one of them 19 and still on the run, robbed a 7-eleven? what has the pursuit been like and how long have these guys been on the radar? i'm told that they have -- they have been on the radar for at least a couple of days and that the issuance of the pictures yesterday afternoon at 5:00 by

the fbi accelerated the pace of the investigation as the fbi hoped it would. i will leave it to pete williams to release further information about their names and their backgrounds. >> mike, i don't want to interrupt you but we do have pete williams. let's bring in him now for more information. >> we have the names although there is an ambiguity about the spelling of the last name here we are trying to resolve. we are told they are brothers. one is 19. one is 20. the one who is at large now, the person identified by the fbi last night in the news conference as the person wearing the white hat. the person who was suspected of planting the second bomb that went off. 13 seconds after the first. is a cambridge, massachusetts, resident. that they are both legal permanent residents of the united states. came here, been here within the past year. his first name is -- this is the man with the white hat.

is dzhokar. and his last name is tsarnae. last name and we have had heard two different versions is z or v. the letter v last name, i don't know if this is a result of people mishearing the last letter or not. >> tsarnae and then the final letter is either z or v and we are trying to straighten that out. >> how far back have you traced them on the radar for the fbi? >> i don't know the answer to that. i know they were not unfamiliar

to the fbi. whether it is just as a result of the boston bombing or whether there was something else that had their interest, i don't know the answer to that. >> nbc pete williams, again, reporting these two are bothers. one 19 years old. he is the one still at large. he is the one who in the pictures we have been showing wearing the white hat and the one that planted the second bomb, a cambridge resident. the other is 20 years old. he perished and law enforcement authorities found him with an ied attached to his body. pete, do i have that all correct? >> that's right. that's right. >> he's on the phone. >> no, that's all right. i think it bears repeating that, you know, this did not start because the fbi was moving in on them. this started because five hours after the fbi showed their picture, they decided apparently to try to make a run for it or, you know, bring it to an end or whatever. they rob a 7-eleven and shoot a campus policeman and it takes off from there. but the fbi was not -- i'm told there were not s.w.a.t. teams

suiting up going into to arrest them. so this -- they are the catalytic agent for this tonight. >> did they have any bead on these two suspects, pete? or was it purely because they held up a 7-eleven and then killed a cop at mit? >> well, i think -- the fbi was interested in them. they were -- they were -- they were among the names that they were zeroing in on but not in the moist of arresting them. >> if i can ask you the 19-year-old who is starnae and he is still at large? >> correct. born july 22nd, 1993. >> with a massachusetts driver's license he has? >> right. a residence of cambridge. >> we will let you get back on the phone. still have mike barnicle with us. pete, thank you very much. >> mike, we want to go back a little bit now to what is

happening in watertown. the 19-year-old in the white is hat large. dzhokar tsarnae. he has shut down some of those western towns just outside boston and has shut down the mbta and has shut down universities and public schools across boston. a remarkable day where you live, mike barnicle. >> absolutely. willie, the ring -- the towns that ring boston, the intermediate suburbs watertown and belmont and newton and alston-brighton neighborhood

where harvard university is, part of harvard university, across the river from cambridge. the harvard football stadium are pretty much all shut down with a multijurisdictional law enforcement response. many, many different jurisdictions responding here. it's an unprecedented scene. >> just the sheer numbers. 320,000 people by nbc's count sheltering in place as ordered by police when you put together these communities of cambridge, newton, brighton, watertown, alston, belmont. 320,000 people now by order of police locked in their homes. >> families who have to explain to their children why they can't go outside. this is not america. not the one we know it to be. this is a tragic situation on every level for sure. we were showing you pictures of military vehicles trolling through the streets of watertown and as you mentioned surrounding areas as well. other towns as well, willie.

and you get a sense that this is going to be a situation where no stone is left unturned until this guy is found. and kerry sanders was telling us earlier that he was just getting out, get ready toss his reporting and he, too, was stopped by police and told to take his hands out of his pockets because there will be no one on the streets of these towns until they figure out where this suspect is. i think we have kerry with us. kerry joins us live from watertown. kerry? >> mika, it is still an ongoing situation as you're reporting and right now we are getting reports from residents inside their homes here in watertown that the officers who are coming through, s.w.a.t. team members knocking on their doors and telling them, identifying themselves saying you're not leaving your house and you're not being evacuated, stay put and get down and remain inside your homes. in other cases, there are folks who are being evacuated. city buses brought in and few people dozen or so being taken on a bus and taken out.

it's going to be a process and i think they are doing that street-by-street as they work through. we do know some of the s.w.a.t. teams have positioned themselves on rooftops of some buildings here in areas. not as if they have a suspect in their sight but looking for movement. the daylight brings an opportunity. overnight the officers have been working through backyards trying to work through the shadows and the darkness but now that the daylight has hit, they have a much better view of what they are trying to take in. unfortunately, there is a rather slow ceiling and clouds which means the helicopter was not deployed overnight and i have not heard the helicopter today. i think a result of the clouds. the authorities are working on the assumption here in watertown somewhere over my shoulder in this direction up here and over here in the neighborhood that there is a suspect that he is hiding, that he is armed. he may have a bomb strapped to him and that he is somebody intent not only taking himself out but taking others with him. the authorities are doing what they can as methodically as they

can. i think a tip of the hat when you consider there are federal authorities here. it appears members of the military here. there are local police here. state police here. i'm seeing an incredibly coordinated effort. i know officers train all the tile and sometimes they cross-train with different departments at different levels but we are seeing an incredible effort as they are working here together with one goal and the real question is that suspect still hiding here somewhere and where is he? >> that's the big question. that is the big mystery. that is because, willie and i have covered mass casualty situations and tragedies and usually it's focused in on one area. there's a crime scene. there is a yellow tape. and there is an inside the crime scene and outside the crime scene. this, i think, might be unprecedented in our country. we have got the u mass boston, northeastern, harvard, bu, suffolk, mit all of the universities and colleges in the boston area, a college town, shut down.

classes just completely cancelled for the day let alone the streets of these cities absolutely clear of people. and dangerous, considered to be dangerous. kerry? >> mika, i can point out that the officers we see concentrated here in watertown are not the only officers at work on this. there are reports coming in around boston of suspicious people, of concerns that maybe they just saw him. these pictures have been out there now for hours. people as grainy as they are have a general sense of what this one suspect may now look like. officers in many different places. i spent some time overnight up in this neighborhood here and walking around in through the neighborhood, there were three separate areas where it appeared there had been part of the shootouts. in one of the areas there were some devices found on the street. they didn't want to call them bombs but they suspected they were devices. they were standing back and

brought in armored personnel carrier to build up a blast wall. when first light came in the bomb disposal unit came with their spell designed vehicle to take the bombs. they have a robot will place them in there. they will move cautiously on all of this. if a suspect is out there and able to trigger the bombs at a marathon with a cell phone, it's likely these could be triggered with a cell phone. the authorities want to make sure the area is safe and to affect the arrest of the suspect and take him into custody. >> nbc's kerry sanders, you've been there throughout the night and we will check back with you momentarily. we are national security experts standing by and pete williams working the phones in washington. we are getting a sense of who these suspects are and where they are xr. a sense of their ages, where they have been living and all of

this will lead us to more information about what exactly they might have been planning to do. we know one is dead. and the other is still on the run. it is the top of the hour. i'm mika brzezinski along with willie geist. we have been following astonishing breaking story throughout the night that started in cambridge, massachusetts. the two suspects, apparently, according to pete williams, got the sense their pictures were out there and they needed to make a break for it. >> what we know this morning just to reset here at the top of the hour, first thing the latest news we have two brothers. one 19 at large. one 20, dead in a shoot-out last night. the one on the right in the white hat is wanted and in pursuit. effectively shutting do you know t -- down cambridge, watertown, newton, waltham and alston and brighton. started at 20:20 p.m. boston

time last night when the two allegedly held up a 7-eleven in cambridge. then a police officer at mit was shot and killed allegedly by these gentlemen here. then they car-jacked, according to law enforcement, a black mercedes suv and held captive the driver of that car for about 30 minutes before releasing him unharmed. that all led to a chase, a pursuit. the chase went into watertown at which point, according to law enforcement sources, these two guys were throwing explosive devices out of the car, including grenades. eventually there was a firefight in which suspect number one, the gentleman in the black hat on the left, was killed, run over with a car and as police approached him, they found him to have an ied strapped to his body. >> let's stop there. we have elements that will back up that story. that firefight that you talk about, willie, happened in watertown. >> right. >> as people in the community listened to this waking them up in the dark of night.

there is explosions and gunfire go gunfire down the street. you get a sense of what happened there in watertown in

the middle of the night. after that, the first suspect on the left with the black hat is dead. law enforcement authorities literally drove over him. when they approached his body he had an ied attached to his body. willie also mentioned the trail of explosives and grenades that they flu out of their car as they sped through the streets. here is what we know so far. according to nbc's pete williams, the two suspects are brothers. one is 19 years old. the one still at large. the other is 20. the 19-year-old has a name i'll do my best with it here. dzhokar tsarnaev and both residents of cambridge and he has a license from the state of massachusetts and born july 22nd, 1993. and he is the one, the suspect who is still at large, he is the one who law enforcement authorities say planted the second bomb.

and right now, as a result of the fact that he has not been caught, they have literally locked down an entire section of the boston area. nobody is allowed out in the streets. this suspect is considered a terrorist, armed and extremely dangerous. >> we have nbc national security analyst michael leiter with us this morning from washington. michael, this is an incredible law enforcement effort that we have seen overnight and into this morning. door-to-door searches in the town of watertown. a military conqoi of 15 military vehicles by one count from our sources there on the ground. was does this tell you with all of the people locked inside their homes? >> this tells me we haven't seen anything like this since 9/11. the scale of shutting down whole communities. it also says that unsurprisingly officials are taking this so

seriously. especially when you've now found one of the perpetrators with an ied on his body. they have to move incredibly carefully because they are going to expect to see other ieds and improvised explosive devices and boobytraps everywhere they go. >> think where they live and an area they have a new type of crime scene if they were so armed along the way of this route from this chase yesterday. >> authorities say they believe these are the same two that committed the marathon bombings on monday so who knows what they are capable of and one still out there and at large. michael, what do you know about how long these two gentlemen have been on law enforcement radar? pete williams believes that the fbi had their names but he pointed out they were not being pursued last night when this went down. they brought this on themselves with the robbery of the 7-eleven and car-jacking and alleged murder of the mit police

officer. did the fbi know who these guys were over the last couple of days? >> not as far as i know. now they have names and birth dates and partial records of when they came, the intelligence community, the fbi willing digging into that. now it will be easier for them to know whether or not they have seen these guys before, who else they have links to, if, to anyone. certainly as has been reported, the potential links back to chechnya will raise many red flags for people given the incredible violence in chechnya. >> we are still working to confirm the country of origin. we want you to know we don't know the country of origin. the 19-year-old named dzhokar tsarnae and his brother was killed last night in the

firefight in a bedroom community of watertown, mass, outside of boston. >> reports show that they lived together. two brothers of nationality we are still confirming. but we do know according to several reports that they have lived in the u.s. for about a year. they may have military experience so there may be other avenues of tracking their background as well especially if that military experience is here in the u.s. and the international ties we are confirming right now. so we are closing in on a profile certainly of these two men. these two men who have changed boston forever. >> michael, what will the fbi, what will law enforcement now be looking for as you say, you've got names, you've got identities of these two guys as you trace backward now to find out how all this came to be and how it happened and what connections they may have at home or overseas? what the next step in this process for law enforcement?

>> you're kind of at two separate tracks. you have the track in boston which is simply finding and arresting to people are safe. the second track is focused in washington, d.c. that is creating a complete profile of these guys. now they are brothers find e-mail addresses and phone records and financial records and every bit of that will be gone through with a fine tooth comb. you want to know did they operate independently or operating with other people and you need that full picture of the two perpetrators to understand whether or not they are ongoing threats, where they got their support and the like. >> according to "the boston globe," this is now for people who are waking up and trying to figure out what is going on, they might logon to "the boston globe" if they live in that area for sure. this is the setting that law enforcement officials and military are creating for their search. these are the institution, "the boston globe" is reporting that announced today they would be closed due to the manhunt for the suspect in the boston

marathon bombings. mtba entire system including commuter rail is shut down. amtrak is shut down and residents in watertown, waltham, belmont, newton, cambridge and brighton to remain indoors. businesses are asked, directed not to open. in watertown, all vehicle traffic is banned. look at this. colleges. harvard, mit, brandeis, boston university and boston college and emerson and suffolk and northeastern all have classes that are closed today. and all boston area public schools cancel all classes and all activities. they are setting the scene to comb every corner of this area for this guy. >> we have a pretty remarkable eyewitness account. a guy we talked to earlier this morning reporting explosions and a massive gun battle between the

two suspects and police. here is the account from andrew kitz kitzenberg have gunshots come through his win and how close he was. >> i went to the window and right outside of our apartment, there were two shooters in between a sedan and a black mercedes-benz suv. and they were in between these two cars taking cover behind the black suv, shooting down our street which is laurel street and they were shooting westward towards what looked to be about six -- six to ten watertown police department vehicles. they were shooting about what seemed to be 70 to 80 yards down the street utilizing handguns. and while they were engaging in gunfire, they were using explosions. it looked to resemble a pressure cooker, what i've seen from other pictures online the last few days. i saw them light this bomb and they threw it towards the officers and only got 15 to 20

yards down, so it wasn't very close to the officers, but it really created a significant decoy, in other words, smoke covered our entire street and, at that point, one of the shooters ran towards the officers, while still engaging in gunfire, and while he was still shooting at him, a few seconds later, the second shooter got back into the suv and turned it around and went full speed into the police officers. >> there is an eyewitness. literally as bullets came through his roof he was able to observe all of this. one suspect still on the run causing the most incredible lockdown of several towns and transportation hub in the boston area. the mayhem really began, according to pete williams, when the suspects realized their pictures were out there. they went on a rampage. it started with -- the worst for

police to undergo and that is for them to lose one of their own. one of the suspects shot an mit police officer in the head so that was the beginning and the end of the night at least has one suspect dead and his body in custody but the other unbelievably still on the run. mike barnicle as you watch this unfold our television set because i know you were woken up by us to get on the phone. after you all have been through in boston trying to move forward through this, tell me what goes through your mind? >> well, actually, mika, i've been up most of the night following this because it's something i've never seen before in my life. i've never heard of before in my professional life. the shut down, the lockdown of multijurisdictional law enforcement response to several intercommunities right around

boston. i should point out that "the boston globe" is now reporting that the suspect at large receives 2,500 scholarship from cambridge latin high school in june of 2011. that is the globe. residents of the two brothers, the one we've identified here on tv, you're looking at him right now. they have been here a while. the larger element in your question, mika, is, again, we have been saying this over and over and over again. it is entirely unprecedented. these communities, watertown especially and belmont and newton literally abut the the city of boston. they are close to the university

to harvard and boston university. this erupted last night as you again pointed out with the robbery of a 7-eleven convenience store in central square cambridge. that is halfway between harvard square and harvard university and mit, which runs along the charles river. that is where this began. what we are watching now. they are going house-to-house in a very, very thickly congested area. >> mike, we are going to pete williams. mike is reporting that he got from "the boston globe," pete, showing that at least one of the suspects may have lived among us for quite some time. pete? >> certainly legal permanent legal residence living in cambridge area. we are trying to track down their hear taj whether chechens or russians. they are together there so we

are trying to straighten that out and trying to get also the first name of the brother, the person who was killed in the early morning hours today after the suv that they were car-jacked was finally stopped by police in watertown. the man wearing the black hat was according to police wearing a bomb strapped to his chest and he was shot and killed. shot several times, we're told. his brother, the man with the white hat, who has been identified as dzhokhar and got away and abandoned the car and now they are searching for him. >> pete, we talked about the last couple of days, internal debate in law enforcement about whether or not to release the photographs. i guess the idea being you didn't want to let anyone know that you were on to them but as you've been reporting all morning it was, in fact, the heat from these photographs that set these two off? >> it was.

you know, think about this. it was, let's see. ten years ago today, i think, that the fbi released two sketches of supposedly john doe number one and john doe number two who were the suspects in the oklahoma city bombing, sketches. now we know that john doe number two turned out to be a case of mistaken identity and number two sketch was timothy mcveigh. it took five hours after releasing these photographs before they had these men on the run. so it's amazing. i think that fbi certainly thinks that they did the right thing by releasing these pictures. what you can't know is -- yes, that was a precipitating event

to made the two start violence that led to their own destruction. go ahead. >> we are getting something from the boston police department. is this their twitter, alex? that he, i guess, the area of calm in charles gate, police will be conducting -- i'm saying this very carefully because maybe we ought to -- it's definitely their twitter, alex? just look at it. >> yes. >> definitely their twitter, verified. conducting a controlled explosion. controlled detonation so they must have found some sort of explosion there? can you explain what perhaps comes to mind when you hear that very limited information? >> sure. my guess would be that the car that was abandoned by dzhokar tsarnaev has been abandoned and they want to get rid of any

bombings. the fbi felt it was beneficial to release these pictures. although it appears to have touched off this night of violence in massachusetts, what the fbi couldn't know is the longer it took to find them could they be planning another bombing? it certainly appears that they had plenty of explosives. >> pete, i don't want you to turn you into a fbi profiler here but any surprise the two suspects remained so close to the scene of the bombing on monday? in other words, they didn't flee, that they weren't in fear of being apprehended by law enforcement and they were across the river in cambridge where the incident took place? >> my guess if you were talking to a profiler or a veteran policeman, they would say that didn't surprise them because most people commit their crimes in the areas they are comfortable with and hide out in the areas they are comfortable with. >> all right. >> pete williams, we will be checking back in with you throughout the morning.

chime in wherever you have new information for you. we will talking to you shortly. if you're just waking up with us at 7:20 here in new york and also boston time. we have an entire area of boston just outside to the west that is currently on lockdown. a shoot-out last night in watertown. one suspect is dead. suspect in the marathon bombings on monday, the gentleman in the black hat is suspect number one, he was killed and shot and approached after a car chase and found to have ieds on his person. still wanted, still at large the gentleman on the right of your screen there, known as the man in the white hat, suspect number two at large, considered armed and extremely dangerous. 19-year-old. these two guys are brothers. the man at large is dzhokhar tsarna, tsarnaev and looking to confirm his origin.

>> according to mike barnicle and "the boston globe" reporting one of the suspects has lived here for some time, receiving some sort of high school scholarship. >> yeah. the city of cambridge awards a scholarship $2,500 to cambridge high school seniors and others who want to pursue higher education. according to the globe, the man at large, the 19-year-old in the white hat, in 2011, so just two years ago, was the recipient of one of these scholarships. that indicates he has lived in the cambridge area for some time. >> another piece of information that we have picked up over the hours here is that at some time, any time now, the police in boston will be conducting a controlled detonation at the area of calm in charles gate. this is according to their twitter site. i guess if anybody in the area hears something, not to be upset by it because this is a controlled detonation probably, as pete williams was telling us, probably one of the explosives or grenades that were thrown out of the car during the police chase, but, again, it's nothing

more than a controlled detonation that will be under way some time soon in their. with us from watertown, massachusetts, katy tur. >> we are learning 381,000 people are currently being told to stay inside in these areas. that consists of watertown where we are right now but cambridge, newtown, waltham and belmont and alston and people are asked to stay indoors because they are going door-to-door looking for their suspect the guy in the white hat and knocking on doors and asking people to stay inside. if anybody else come to those doors they are asking them to call 911 immediately. we heard reports of people around here being evacuated. we haven't seen that at this location but i know at our other location we were seeinging some of that. very chilling moments in watertown. you can only imagine what it

would be like to wake up and maybe not heard what happened last night but wake up and turn on the news and see every single news outlet saying we are in watertown and there is a potential terrorist, a guy we believe blew up some people at the boston marathon and he could be hiding in this area. the streets around here are pretty empty which is surprising for rush hour on a friday morning. you're not seeing anybody around here except the ton of media. there is reporters and that is about it. the stores are closed. dunkin' donuts is only thing opened around here. the people of this town are staying inside. all mbta service, the bus and rail lines, have been shut down. so even if you wanted to get to work, you just can't right now. police are stopping people on the streets in this area telling them not to leave. it's on a complete lockdown. >> lockdown on the ground and in the air. no chopper shot to show you because they will not allow anything on the area both on the on the ground and above.

amtrak service is shut down. people are waking up to a ghost town in most of this area. and i'm talking about not just watertown. waltham, belmont, newton, cambridge and alston and brighton remaining indoors. everybody is asked to remain indoors. if you see anything, if you see anything, you are asked to call 911 immediately. businesses are going to be shut down for the day. they are being asked not to open. all vehicle traffic is banned completely in watertown. the streets are empty. colleges, harvard, mit, brandeis, boston university, eme emerson and suffolk and northeastern and all schools shut down and classes are cancelled. boston public schools have cancelled all activity and all classes and all because of the one man on the right side of your screen, the man in the white hat, he is still at large. he is reportedly according to nbc's pete williams 19 years old and he is the one who allegedly

planted the second bomb in the boston marathon bomb tragedies. he is apparently a cambridge resident born in 1993. the other suspect, the two of them appear to be brothers. the other suspect is 20. the 19 at large is dzhokhar tsarnaev. could be a v or z at the end of his name. pete having a hard time reading his license. we don't know much about where he comes from but we have a sense from pieces of information that are coming in from different news organizations that he has been in this country for quite some time. receiving a high school scholarship several years ago. we also know that the brothers lived in cambridge. they may have some military experience and we are also trying to confirm some ties to other countries.

let's take it to isikoff. >> this started where they live. they live in cambridge, massachusetts. this was a robbery in cambridge near mit in kendall square 10:20 last night they rob a 7-eleven. then they go and shoot an mit police officer who was seated in his cruiser and car-jack a black mercedes and hold the driver 30 minutes and release that person unharmed. then the police chase and when the shoot-out began and eventually suspect number one was killed but not before being found with an ied on his person. one of the physicians where the suspect number one was brought said this was more than gunshot wounds. this was from the hospital. it was a combination of injuries saying there were some explosive device and shrapnel in suspect number one. >> and from what they threw out of the car, now we are getting a tweet from the boston police department, their verified

account for people in calm and charles gate they will be conducting a controlled observation. one of the explosives they had in their custody apparently as they were speeding from the streets from cambridge to watertown it has been discovered and so they are going to be conducting a controlled detonation. if you're in the area, that is what you're hearing. >> and why you see such a wide swath of boston shutdown. people inside their homes. >> they had no choice. >> they don't know what is out there and they don't know what devices these guys may have left. let's go to michael isikoff, the nbc news national investigative correspondents and in watertown for us this morning. set the scene. we are getting reports of what looks like a military operation with humvees and other armored personnel carriers rolling through town. >> exactly, willie. over the last hour, we have seen a convoy of humvees, buses of police, all gathering in what appears to be a staging area across the street from me here at this parking lot across from

the watertown mall. that's a marshall's department store there. there is a small army there, as i say, gathered for what could be some sort of confrontation or assault. we don't know. but this has been going on now steadily for the past hour. we have been watching this and, you know, good reason to understand why so many armed military and police would be gathering here after we recount what took place last night. the improvised explosive devices that were hurled by police by this suspect and his now dead cohort. it's a pretty chilling reminder of just how much mayhem and terror one individual like this can spread. now, a a little while ago -- earlier in the morning, we had some reason to believe they

might think this -- the man in the white cap was holed up in a office complex not far from here. apparently, a sensor or security sensor had been triggered. we have gotten no confirmation that he is there. certainly not consistent with them shutting the entire transit system of boston down. but one thing is clear, they are preparing for something over here because it's a pretty big operation. >> michael, thank you. typical american sites, a mall and a public school art exhibit being displayed on a sign and behind, that the military and law enforcement officials setting up a massive staging area. good morning, everyone. it's 7:30 a.m. on the east coast. all night long, we have been tracking incredible developments in the hunt for two brothers accused in the boston marathon bombings. willie geist is here with me in new york. the brothers in watertown,

massachusetts. evolved into a manhunt with 400,000 people being order to do stay that their homes. >> police saying the 20-year-old in the black hat from the surveillance video released yesterday is dead. the man in the white hat remains at large and identified as 19-year-old dzhokhar tsarnaev and considered to be dangerous and violent. one mit police officer is dead and another wounded. police going door-to-door to try to find the second suspect and warning people in the area to stay in their homes and seven communities totaling almost 400,000 people, stay in your home and do not open the door unless it's an identified police officer and if you see anything, call 911. >> it all began apparently when the suspects tried to rob a 7-eleven. then shot and killed an mit police officer.

pete williams reports they later car-jacked a mercedes suv mere mit campus and keeping the car owner's at beggun-point and the releasing the car owner 30 minutes later. in charles gate some of the explosives were discovered and police and law enforcement authorities are trying to do away with it appropriately. at some point point during the standoff one pressure cooker bomb similar to the ones used in the boston marathon bombing. one suspect was killed in the shoot-out. that, again, is the one in the black hat. >> he reportedly was run over and when police approached his body, they discovered an ied strapped to his chest. a doctor who works at a medical center alerted the hospital when he heard gunfire at his home in watertown, the hospital where the suspect who was killed was

treated. he died there at the hospital. here is some of what the doctor said just a short time ago. >> started hearing the gunshots and explosions. i recognized that something was really -- really wrong and called the emergency department to let them know and then quickly got dress to do come into work and rush over to the emergency department. >> all we know he arrived in arrest here and don't know what happened at the scene. >> he was in cardiac arrest before he got to the hospital? correct. shrapnel with gunshot wounds. >> a bomb strapped to his chest? >> unclear. i think the in examiner will be able to conclusively say that but signs of more than just gunshot wounds. >> when he say other unexploded devices and explosives had been left behind. officials tell nbc news the two suspects are permanent residents of the united states and the surviving brother did have a massachusetts driver's license.

i want to point out a new piece of information we just got and michael isikoff confirmed from the cambridge police the public and media have been cleared out of an area norfolk street in cambridge. police saying ongoing investigation that is potentially dangerous. everyone should stay clear. that goes for the public and the media. norfolk street in cambridge. they are looking into something on that street. >> who knows what it is. maybe they could find another device or could be something else. we will follow that. communities and colleges around the boston area, meanwhile, on lockdown. 4,000 people in all told to stay in their homes or apartments or wherever they are. stay inside and stay off the streets. that specifically applies to watertown. no traffic is allowed on the streets of watertown. mass transit is shut down. all of mbta, amtrak from providence to boston is shut down as well and mit, brandeis and u mass boston and bu,

harvard, northeastern, suffolk university all closed today. also, obviously, all boston public schools and activities will be canceled as well. we have this video that we have been looking at that gives you a sense of what went down on the streets of watertown last night because some people may be waking up to this news. others woke up to the sounds of gunfire and explosions. take a listen. >> there is explosions and gunfire going on down the street.

this is youtube video one view from quite far away but you get a sense. it's a war zone in watertown throughout the night and what people woke up to. probably quite some time no idea what is happening. ultimately they found out what we are reporting now. one of the suspects is dead in that shoot-out but actually he was run over by police. his body discovered with an ied attached to it. the second suspect, 19 years old, cambridge resident. still on the run. he is the one in the white hat and appearing to be still wearing it at this point, they say, a gray sweatshirt and he is the reason 400,000 people and an entire area around watertown, massachusetts, is on lock down at this hour.

>> to give you an idea of what people in these communities are waking up to this morning. this is a photograph taken by a woman in watertown, massachusetts, named shawna england. she sent this out. she is looking out the window of her home as you can see two law enforcement agents in s.w.a.t. gear on the shed in her backyard. >> oh, my lord. >> that is the scene right now in these bedroom communities as mike barnicle described them just west of the city. mike, i don't know if you can see these photographs. >> i do. >> what a scene. >> yeah, willie. mike isikoff reported that there is activity now norfolk street in cambridge. if we get that map that we had up earlier in the region. the map where the marathon bombing took place and cambridge is misleading in the ge geography we are talking about small and congested.

watertown abuts cambridge and norfolk street is not that far from auburn street and not that far from the arsenal mall where there is a collection of military and police vehicles gathered. it's a very, very small, very congested area which, again, lends to the degree of difficulty involved here in law enforcement trying to apprehend the suspect. >> the worry i'm just thinking now of all the possibilities. the worst being that he slips away. the question i wonder when police were confronting them if there was any sighting of him. might he also have explosives attached to his body? this man is so dangerous that law enforcement officials, the military, everybody on the scene have no choice but to completely lock down the area and stop people in the tracks of that i lives. >> a man wearing the ied on his body as the first suspect as did he when he died is not afraid to

die is very clear and don't know where this man is. gives you some indication how brazen they were last night when they got out of the car and went at police. when the suspect still on the run got into the car-jacked mercedes suv he went at police. these are men who are not afraid to die and we don't know what they are capable of this morning. >> it will be a tough, tough situation for families in homes across the area that is locked down, how to keep children calm, how to explain this. how to find out what is going on while not exposing them. i can't imagine this going on time and time again in homes across the watertown area and boston area as colleges and schools are closed. these children will have to be told something. it's difficult because literally people are not allowed out in the streets. i can't think of anything like this. mike barnicle, are you still with us? >> i'm here, yes. >> it's not -- you know, you've covered crime scenes and i've

covered crime scenes. i was saying earlier to willie usually a yellow tape that separates you from the area, the ground zero even of what has happened. this is something entirely different. >> yeah. this is a lot of square miles of people and places quarantined, literally quarantined by police. as you indicated, people being in two or three communities being urged to stay indoors and lock their doors and stay at home. and you've got the police now having to go door-to-door looking for someone, as willie indicated, as was reported, whose brother had an ied strapped to himself. clearly willing to explode himself that way before he was killed while being apprehended. the suspect at large, as willie just pointed out, not only were these two people given their behavior last evening and given their alleged behavior on patriots day in boston, not only

are they willing to die, but clearly there has been some training here, some high level of training in terms of weaponry and in terms of bomb making capability, in terms of commitment, obviously, to whatever has driven them to this point. this is, again, i mean, we have said this several times this morning. this is completely unprecedented, the pursuit of this one individual suspect. >> yet they have no choice. >> let's bring in nbc national security analyst michael leiter who has been with us throughout the morning in washington. michael, as you absorb all of these facts coming in fast and furious, we know now confirmed we have a 19-year-old at large, his brother a 20-year-old killed last night in that shoot-out. what, at this point, is the fbi doing in terms of intelligence gathering? we know about the pursuit here in washington -- excuse me in boston just to secure the public safety. that's priority number one. but what now links will they be

looking for from this young man and these two men who apparently lived in cambridge for at least a year, probably two, if you look at the report from "the boston globe" this morning, that says the suspect at large received a scholarship from a high school in cambridge in may of 2011. that would put it at about two years. what sort of links will they now be looking for between these two men here at home or abroad? >> two things, willie. first, every bit of information that is collected will lead to a long line of investigation. so, for example, you mentioned the high school. that will mean that a team of fbi and local police officers will go out and they will be interviewing all of the people who he may have come in contact with. they will be going through all of the school records. if they know he had a credit card, they will go down that financial scream and every small bit of information leads to another huge of investigation and certainly on the travel front. every bit of travel they have done, any associations overseas and working with intelligence organizations overseas. the second piece i would say is

outside of boston, there are folks all over washington who are watching this news too. i did this a while but this is shocking and trying to keep up on the facts as they develop, everyone is doing that all over the city. >> here is a great example of that. we are just getting this report from pete williams, michael. first of all, the names of the suspected and some updates on their ages. dzhokhar born in 1993 identified by the fbi as wearing the white hat. he does have confirming a massachusetts license. a resident of cambridge and we are told now he was born in kyrgyzstan. his brother's age is 26 and born in russia and became a permanent legal residents in 2007. also pete williams reporting we are told the brothers came with their family to the united states in either 2002 or 2003.

very fresh information. no reason to draw any conclusions from just this. just more pieces of the puzzle that we will slowly pull together. the bigger issue now is the manhunt under wail and the safety of the people in the boston and watertown area. having that said, michael, given your experience and without going too far, let's look at what has happened. let's look at what they reportedly have done to attack in the way they did, the boston marathon. an international event. iconic american event. the oldest marathon in the world and to attack it an hour in when regular people were just crossing the finish line, to create bombs that were built, if they were built with any intention, to maim, to maim the people and to maim so many people. and then what pete williams is telling us is this sort of manhunt and this big chase overnight was really triggered

by them possibly realizing their faces and pictures were out there and needed to make a break for it but they were the catalyst for this break overnight. robbing a 7-eleven and car-jacking and shooting a mit police officer through the head and driving through the streets of cambridge to watertown and throwing bombs and explosives out of their body. a massive shoot-out. in the dark of night in watertown, woke people up in their homes, terrorized countless people. ultimately ended in the death of one suspect. we believe that to be the 26-year-old. he was run over by a law enforcement vehicle and when they discovered his body, when they finally approached his body, they discovered his body had an ied attached to it. >> one new detail as you were speaking, mika. pete williams reporting the suspect at large ran over his own brother's body as he fled in that car-jacking.

>> in the chaos is wasn't a law enforcement car, his own brother who drove over him? >> i don't know about the law enforcement piece but pete does confirm his own brother drove over the body. whether a second time or the one we have been reporting, he was driven over by his own brother. >> when they discovered his body, as i mentioned it had explosives attached to it. there's so much being pulled together right now about these two. with the latest that we find i just want to know, michael, what comes to your mind, given your expertise studying these people, terrorists? >> mika, you don't have to know all of the specifics to see that these two had done some really meticulous planning here and they have been doing this for a long time. this isn't something you roll out of bed and say, "let's try something." these are folks who wanted to kill people and wanted to do it for a while. exactly where they are from and what their precise motivation was, that's important for

understanding what follow-on threats would be. as you so eloquently said, right now, the focus for the fbi is doing all they can to investigate, but first is apprehend and secure the safety of the public up there. >> we are looking at also, willie, i know you've got information on who is about to speak. we will take that news conference live. there's got to be -- when you look at boston marathon and you look at the international value of that event, these guys got what they wanted. that is an international platform for terror and they are doing it again right now. what are we expecting? >> we are going to have any minute now a press conference from watertown, massachusetts. we don't know what detail. we will get at that point. we will expect to hear from deval patrick. >> you've been reporting and we have been following certain side events pertaining to this

because of all the chaos and the different explosive devices that they were throwing out of the car and throwing at law enforcement at some point. there are certain different controlled events by authorities happening, one at the corner of calm -- >> charles gate. >> charles gate. it might have been has had and might not have but they are conduct ago controlled detonation there. if you hear something in that area, that's what it is. kenmore square in the area of kenmore square. we also have other areas. >> a street in cambridge that has been shut down. the fbi hastily didn't ask. ordered all media and all bystanders to get out of that area in cambridge. we don't know what they are doing there. you know, this is watertown, massachusetts right here. >> i'm looking at a lady with her baby. military officials storm the home. they are going house-to-house and checking every corner, every bush, every shed, every garage.

everything! and people are literally just standing in place waiting for word as to what to do next because the streets of watertown have been shut down. >> mike, there is a staging area as michael isikoff reported at the watertown mall. military vehicles assembling there and making their way with armored personnel carriers through the small commute outside of boston. is mike barnicle still bus? >> i'm here, yeah. >> a scene no one could have dreamed up when you consider what kind of towns these are. seeing military vehicles roll through the streets and doing door-to-door checks, asking residents to stay locked in their homes. >> yeah. not only that, willie, but, i mean, reasonable hour of the evening, 10:30, 11:00 last night. people were watching the news or getting ready to go to bed, you have a group of police, local, state, federal, streaming down the street from cambridge in watertown and it's a pretty wide boulevard as we've indicated.

residential for large parts of it on both sides. and that is the way people were ended their day and i assume most of the people in that neighborhood have been up all night, as many people in greater boston have been up all night. people in greater boston have been up all night. now as the dawn has greeted us and the police have grown in numbers and, clearly, the mission has grown more dangerous, thus the warnings to all the residents to remain inside. the arduous task of going door to door in these neighborhoods and sweeping different homes and having people evacuated from some homes in some areas is something i, again, i have never witnessed. i don't know that any of us have ever witnessed this. >> i don't know and i'm hoping they have some sort of update. but we are awaiting a news conference right now with governor deval patrick and the mayor of watertown hopefully

explaining the situation further. they have locked down everything in watertown. the streets are literally bare. anyone who steps out of their homes will be questioned. they're looking for that man on the right and they have, understandably, at this point, what has happened in the past week, no choice but to leave no stone unturned and to stop traffic in its track, life in its tracks in cambridge, newton, brighten, watertown, allston, belmont. this is life being shut down, temporarily, until they find the second suspect in the boston marathon shooting. i look forward to hearing from the governor and mayor and anybody else in law enforcement, applaud what they're doing and hope that the people who are at the center of this storm can

remain patient and hope they can find the second suspect as soon as possible. >> several things speak to the extent of this operation. we showed that photograph. i don't know if we can put it up, again. resident of watertown tweeting this out. looking out her back window and seeing s.w.a.t teams on the shed in the backyard. complete shut down of the mtba the mass bay transit authority. that's commuter rails, that's the t, the subway there in boston and buses. people showing up to catch their bus or t. at 5:20 this morning being turned away by uniformed officials told to go back home. the logan international airport, we should point out, currently open, but under heavy, as you can imagine, security. the airport is open at this hour, but under heavy security. >> we're joined by philadelphia, chief john timmeny.

once again. chief timany, a lot happened since we last spoke. the lockdown under way. controlled detonations taking place in different hot spots in the cambridge area. give us a sense of what you feel is unfolding and also how people who are stuck in their homes should try and explain what is happening, especially to the younger ones. >> a couple things, if the reports that are coming out that these are two brothers, what has been going on the last four days makes perfect sense. if you look at the chechnya and whether it's seizing a theater and killing 120 people or grammar school and killing 340 students over the course of five days and then attacking military parades and shopping malls, these are people who are not typical terrorists. suicide bomber and these are

ones that stay there until the last man standing and will take on the authorities and the soldiers and the police and, so, some of the stuff, if it's true, then it's starting to make some sense, viee visa vis-a-viavis-v. these guys are armed to the teeth, not just with guns but with ieds. god knows how many guns this guy has left and how many other ieds. they have to do this pain stakingly. at the same time of getting this guy alive and find out who is behind him and also making sure that hundreds of thousands of people surrounding boston are safe. i know it's a huge inconvenience, but this is an extraordinary event to just, even mike barnicle who has been

around 40 years has never experienced anything like this. i've never experienced anything like this. every step they're taking is proper and necessary. >> and that description for our viewers is coming from a man who ran the police department in philadelphia. ran the police department in miami. forgive me if i interrupt you in a minute. we're expecting deval patrick and ed davis will be at the podium, as well as the head of the state police there in massachusetts. talk about how you have to take a different approach to somebody who you think is armed with guns to someone who is armed and proved to use improvised explosive devices. how do you treat someone like that? >> it's extraordinarily difficult to get a bad guy with a gun anyway. to get a bad guy with a gun and maybe an ied who is willing to die, you know, he's willing to

be martyred and he doesn't care who he hurts or takes out in the process, the more he takes out, the more the hero he becomes, almost an impossible task. i guarantee they're going to try to take this guy alive, but my sense, just what i've seen so far, he may not want to be taken alive. the police will do what the police have to do to protect themselves and the citizens. hopefully this guy, you know, now that he doesn't have his brother with him, if you will, as a support mechanism, maybe he'll have second thoughts and maybe he'll get scared and surrender. given the history of what has gone on over the past in russia, given their partnership with al qaeda and trained with osama bin laden in afghanistan in the late '80s the chech neen rebels. no problem taking your lives but their own lives in the process.

>> the worry also is complicated by the fact, willie, he may take his own life and may take someone else's around him depending what he has on him. it's so complicated that this massive, massive lockdown. the likes of what i don't think we've seen before in this country is the only choice, at this point. it's the only choice. >> if chief john timany hasn't seen it, it hasn't been seen in a long time. the two brothers, the one who was killed last night tamerlan tsarnaev. the man police are looking for at this hour is dzhokhar tsarnaev, identified by the fbi as wearing the white hat, as you can see in the photograph there. those were the photographs from the scene on monday at the boston marathon that were made public by the fbi last night.

dzhokhar the man at large has a massachusetts driver's license and was born in kyrgyzstan. they came to the u.s. with their family in 2002, 2003. may have been here well over a decade in the united states. >> and has left a trail of devastation in their wake. pete williams also saying that this chase last night, which culminated and still continues now, but culminated in a huge shootout with the sounds of gunfire and explosives ringing through the streets of watertown in the dark of night. these guys were the ones who started this by potentially a realizing their faces were out there and if they wanted to make another mark or make a break for it, they had to do it right away. it involved them robbing a 7-eleven, carjacking someone, letting that person go,

unbelievably a, but shooting an m.i.t. police officer in the head, killing him, murdering him at point blank range. the chase from cambridge to watertown has left a trail of fear and mystery in their wake with bombs and grenades and explosives being thrown out the window leading to controlled detonations taking place throughout the area. one happening, potentially, right now in the ken momore squ area. then, ultimately, the shootout. which we have video of and little bit of sound of someone who put it up on youtube. we'll listen to a small portion. we're, of course, awaiting a news conference which will be starting, you know what, they're walking up to the microphones. we'll wait on the video. governor deval patrick. >> couple points i want to make and then i'll ask commissioner davis from boston and then colonel from the state police to make a statement. we are not going to take questions this morning.

i know you have a lot of questions, but, obviously, we had a very rapidly developing situation. of course, the night i've been briefed throughout the night. i think you know the basics that suspect one is dead. suspect two is on the run. we have an mbta officer who was seriously wounded and is in surgery right now. an m.i.t. security officer who has been killed. there is a massive manhunt under way. a lot of law enforcement involved in that. to assist that, we have suspended all service on the mbta our public transit service and that will continue until we think it is safe to open all or some of that. we are asking people to shelter in place, in other words, to stay indoors with their doors locked and not to open the door for anyone other than a properly identified law enforcement

officer and that applies here in watertown, where we are right now. also cambridge, newton, belmont and, at this point, all of boston. all of boston. this is a serious situation. we're taking it seriously. we're asking the public to take it seriously, as well. and assist law enforcement by following those simple instructions. we have every asset that we can possibly muster on the ground right now. they are doing a terrific job in working in concert with each other, but we are going to need the public to help us help them stay safe. commissioner. >> thank you, governor. as the governor said, this is a rapidly developing situation. within the last half hour, we received information that i have communicated to mayor menino, he asked me to come here and tell you that the shelter in place

recommendation has been extended throughout the city of boston. there is a lot of information coming in. we're working very closely with federal authorities in washington. we are examining all databases. all potential leads and there are offices that are moving around the city right now. please, be patient with us. work with us. if you see anything suspicious, let us know. we are trying to make it as safe as quickly as possible. this is an ongoing situation. i want to stress that. this is an ongoing situation. >> colonel timothy albin. i want to say thank you to each and every one of you. you have gotten the message out to the neighborhood. i have to ask you to continue to do that. our number one priority right now is with these neighborhoods here in watertown and making them safe and finding this individual. that's what we're committed to. we need more time. we're making significant progress up there, but it may take hours to do this. please, bear with us. i know there are a lot of

questions and we'll have plenty of time to address those after this. for right now this is about public safety and the watertown neighborhood. give us that leeway. we'll be back shortly. thank you. >> mika, we just heard something incredible. shelter in place order extended for the entire city now of boston. the city of 625,000 people or so. shelter in places you hear when there is a chemical leak or some kind of a gas explosion, keep people inside. the governor, the chief of police in the city of boston consulting with mayor menino has now ordered everyone in the city of boston inside with the doors locked and not to open those doors unless a uniformed officer acknowledges himself at the door. >> this was, initially, the ground zero of this operation, of this situation was watertown. for the past few hours we have been surmising with experts as to whether or not this is

unprecedented. this is unprecedented at this point. you are now hearing that the entire city of boston and literally parts of the surrounding area are in a lo lockdo lockdown, shelter in place, as willie put it. we have with us boston's best and most well-known person and a friend of our show, friend of our show, mike barnicle. your reaction to what we just heard. >> mika, you just said it. it's completely unprecedented. and people watching this from around the country, in order to give them a sense of the geography of what the officials were just speaking to. this is a highly, highly, thickly congested residential area. the entire area. watertown, belmont, city of boston, allston-brighten. the cities that make up the city of boston. narrow streets, many of them. two decker, three-decker homes.

what they call them here. many residential areas. single-family homes. very thickly congested and the scope, the scope of this extraordinary door-to-door investigation and searching for one suspect is, again, something i can't recall ever happening in a metropolitan area. i don't know who could. >> we have with us michael chertoff head of homeland security for the united states. secretary chertoff help us get some perspective on this. can you remember a city receiving a shelter in place order? >> i can't. obviously, this is an extraordinary event because you have a terrorist moving around in a large area, obviously, very dangerous. i think it's appropriate to tell people to shelter in place, but something that is very unusual. >> at the same time, here are the questions. i mean, here are the questions

at play since the double bombing at the boston marathon finish line. two gentlemen that showed up with black bags and blew up an area at the finish line, maimed dozens and dozens and dozens of people, murdered people. hid until their pictures were flashed all over tv screens and newspapers and computer screens across the country. made a break for it. murdered an m.i.t. police officer at point blank range, carjacked someone, robbed a 7-eleven, threw bombs out of their cars and one of them, after he was killed in the chaos, possibly by his own brother driving over his body. we don't know yet exactly how he died, discovered with an ied attached to his body. we have an unprecedented situation where law enforcement authorities, michael chertoff, have no choice but to try to figure out how to contain the suspect. at the same time i'm sure you're thinking this is the

international platform that an international terrorist would be asking for. >> that's exactly right. as you may have discussed already. there is a long history of chechnya being a source of activity. most of that was directed within russia and some new totorious c where people. a lot that has gone on in the last 10, 15 years it exported terrorism and europeans went to chechnya to fight on behalf of the separatists and then came back and became extremists and terrorists in their home countries. you have some folks here who have some training and are prepared to really do whatever they need to do to carry out their mission. reminds me a little bit of what happened in mumbai in 2008 where you had terrorists who moves around the city of mumbai killing and bombing until, finally, they were contained and killed. >> i'm not sure how much we can confirm about the chechen

connection, but i think of the history of the atrocities that have happened in chechnya and even the reporter who was killed at point blank range, caught in the middle of that just reporting on it, but if there is a connection, just a whole new world as it comes to boston. we don't know yet too much about that. we're just finding out, willie the names, the age as and the connections that these two brothers had to cambridge and other countries. >> all we know according to pete williams, the suspect was born in kyrgyzstan and his brother was born in russia. they became legal, permanent residents of the united states in 2007. mr. chertoff, back to the urgent matter at hand. what does it tell you that the city of boston now has been locked down. it looked like the focus of the investigation, of the pursuit was in watertown. but when you lock down now the entire metropolitan area of

boston, doesn't that leave open the question of whether or not he is not inside watertown but could be anywhere, frankly, in the area. >> i think that's exactly right. i mean, obviously, this whole stage of the process began with a carjacking and moving from cambridge into watertown. that suggests that part of the mo here is for this individual to keep on the move and unless he finds a place to hide out. so, it may be some time before the police can actually localize where he is. i think they're wise to take the precaution of making sure that everybody is staying inside and sheltering in place because he could be looking to grab a car and move some place else. >> the question, also, is -- yeah, cooperation and i'm not sure what alex said in my ear. say it, again, alex. the question, also, michael chertoff, where they lived, what is the danger there? they're also dealing with devices that they've strewn

across their path between cambridge and watertown. so many hot spots connected with these guys and, you know, possibly not ruling out the fact that they may know other people who have conspired with them. >> mika a, th, that's exactly r. if you think about what the authorities are doing right now, they're doing a number of different things. first, trying to secure any place that these individuals might have been connected to. where they might have devices or components of devices to make sure there's nothing out there that might blow up. that's similar to what we saw in aurora when there was the individual who had trapped his apartment. they are also going to be looking to see what connections do these people have. this is similar to what we did right after 9/11. first thing you look when you have an identity, is there a network out there? other people planning to do something or supporting these people? the police are doing that, as well. finally, trying to figure out

where this individual might go. some place he has a connection to that might be a refuge? simultaneously we're hunting physically and looking to build a construct of the entire network of these two individuals as quickly as they can. >> willie? >> michael, can you remember a time whether when you were homeland security chief or before or after when you had to consider the possibility, at least, of locking down an american city? >> you know, the closest i have to say is september 11th. i mean, i was head of criminal division then and we, of course, were very concerned about follow-on attacks after the initial attacks that we experienced that morning. and one of the concerns was, were there going to be attacks on the ground in places like washington. we had to consider what we would doif we had a sign that someone was on the ground acting out as

a terrorist. happily there weren't any follow-on attacks on the ground. but, certainly, this is a familiar experience to me. >> it's just, it's just remarkable. it's remarkable what we've seen and escalated by police now, not just asking the residents of the six or seven towns and the western part just outside of boston to stay in their homes but now the entire city of boston staying in their homes with doors locked. what would you expect from here, the kind of coordination to be going forward, michael? what the next move in this investigation? >> well, willie, first let me say what you are seeing here notwithstanding the terrible tragedy that launched this and continues, the harvesting of the investment and training and coordination and cooperation that's occurred over the last ten years. you see it in terms of the ability to get the video and use it and deploy it right away. you see it in the cooperation between federal, state and local authorities. so, this is all a sign that what

we have invested here has really yielded returns. what i think is going to happen next is they are going to try to map the entire network. figure out where these guys came from, specifically, you know, were they trained? what are the kecks overseas. is there someone guiding this or encouraging this from overseas and, even more urgently, are there other people they're connected to in boston or in the united states that ought to be looked at very carefully because they might be part of something, as well. >> so, listening to you talk about what needs to be done, secretary chertoff, this could last quite some time. >> well, i think there will be a couple of stages. obviously, one stage will be when they apprehend this last brother. that is the most urgent task. but i envision there will be quite a bit of follow-on investigation as there was after 9/11 where they'll map every single connection and link these

individuals had to see if there are others out there who might have been part of this plan or who might be planning to follow up. that will be, obviously, won't be a lock down situation, hopefully, a more measured situation. but, you know, this is the kind of thing where you have to make sure you have every potential connection out there that could be dangerous. you just can't assume once you eliminated the second individual, your job is done. >> former secretary of homeland security michael chertoff, we really appreciate your perspective this morning. hope to check back in with you in a little while. in the meantime, we have pete williams standing by for us in washington. pete, what more do you have for us? >> well, the names here and the family backgrounds are starting to become much clearer now to us. we know that dzhokhar tsarnaev was born in kyrgyzstan and he's 19 years old and resident of cambridge and his brother, the 26-year-old, is a legal

permanent resident born in -- sorry, became a legal permanent resident in 2007. he's 26 years old. born in 1986 in russia. and we believe that they came to the united states with their family, probably ten years ago. 2002 or 2003. and, apparently, the family had claimed asylum. his father had worked in chechnya. so, they have -- there's a contact or there's a context with russia, chechnya and kyrgystan. now that we know the who part of the boston marathon bombing. the why part is where everybody is going to be focusing on now. what it was that caused this family that came to the united states because they saw it as an answer to problems, seeking asylum and seeking to escape something. why would these two brothers eventually want to try to kill

their fellow residents? their legal permanent residents here. so, why did they do this? that's going to be the next big question. >> pete, an important moment of cla clarity here. a lot of people are talking about a chechnya connection and what it might mean to rusha and the united states. what is the connection to chechnya, aside from what you just said that his father worked in chechnya? >> i think that is the connection. whether they lived there. i'm assuming they lived there for a time if the father worked there. we believe the father had some sort of government job there. so, that's probably the connection to chechnya. >> but we can't say for sure if the suspects lived there or for how long. >> it seems they lived there, for how long, we don't. >> nbc pete williams. pete, if you need to jump on the phone, you let us know, but as we've been recapping this, i have been focusing on something

you said earlier and i want to see if that still stands. that this entire chase and chain of events and tragedies that happened overnight, which includes the murder of an m.i.t. police officer and a shootout, including explosives in the streets of watertown, massachusetts, which ultimately led to the death of one of the suspects, who was discovered with an ied attached to his body. we'll have that video of some of the shootout taking place in just a moment. but, first, it all started by these two deciding to make a break for it, as far as you can see? >> this did not start because the fbi was about to swoop in on them. they were among the names that the fbi had developed. they certainly were interested in them, but it's not like there was an arrest imminent or that it was in the process of going down when they all started this. when they became the catalysts for this night of violence, which -- and concern which hasn't ended yet. it starts with them about 10:00

last night. about four or five hours after the fbi disclosed their photographs and said they were responsible for the boston marathon bombings. that's when this chain of events began. they rob a 7-eleven and shoot a campus policeman and they carjack, steal a car and let the driver out half an hour after holding him at gunpoint and shoot it out with police in watertown. one brother is killed. seen with explosives strapped to his chest. his brother guns the engine on the car and drives over the dead brother and off he goes. eventually abandoning the car and beginning this chase which has people in several communities in massachusetts to stay in their houses. >> again, we're looking at, i'm updating here on "boston globe" website which doesn't have the fact that boston at this point is part of this ground zero. i wonder, pete, i don't expect you to know the answer to this question because i cannot think

of the precedent, i wonder how long an area like this can be kept locked down and how long an entire city can keep its people indoors. >> well, i can't think of a precedent for it, frankly, because, you know, i was thinking that even when you have escaped convicts, murderers from the local prison that gets away, you don't hear that. and my guess, mika, i'm trying to think of why this might be. i'm wondering if the authorities are saying, well, if the brother who was shot, the 26-year-old tamerlan tsarnaev if he had explosives strapped to him, perhaps the younger brother did, too. or is carrying a lot of explosives. it wasn't their car, so, they didn't apparently load it up with explosives before they took off. but they must have been carrying a lot. >> that's a legitimate question we can put out there and the other question i would ask is where they live, what's there?

what have they planted and what have they left along the way? we know of areas in the part of the chase -- >> cambridge. >> the coverage area, they are doing controlled det nag onatio because of what they left in their path. where did they live and what did they have where they lived? what did they use to prepare for the boston marathon bombing and what have they left behind? these are all questions that we don't have answers to which leads to this media advisory that is put out by the city of boston. this is the exact language they're using. the city of boston is urging citywide shelter in place as this investigation unfolds, we are advising all residents, citywide, to shelter in place. please understand we have an armed and dangerous person and in parentheses, persons, and police pursuing every lead in this event. please, be patient and use

common sense until this person or persons are apprehended. we will continue to update the public with more information as it becomes available. all mbta service remains suspended at this time. there is a question there about other persons involved, pete williams. >> i'm sorry, mika. i'm sorry. >> that's okay. we were just covering the in parentheses an s, person or persons still at large. >> my question is that is out of an abundance of caution, although, i think one question along here is did they have accomplices and were there other people working with them. i have to assume by now the police have begun a search or, if they haven't already completed one of where they were living and who knows what warnings or literature or what else they might have found there that may have been keying into

this concern. >> pete, the reporting you have is that the brothers came with their family to the united states, either in 2002 or 2003, is that right? >> yes. that the family sought asylasyl. >> that would put these young men in a decade ago, having lived here. as we pointed out, the one still at large receiving a scholarship at a high school in cambridge, massachusetts, two years ago. >> raising the questions about terrorists living among us, growing up in our communities. it doesn't, i'm not sure which is worse at this point when you discover where they came from, how they got here, how long they've lived here. this is now sort of taking it to a whole new level, possibly. pete? >> right. or at least a familiar one. and, unfortunately, familiar one because i think the question now will be, we know the who, but what is the why? >> exactly. >> latest information, too. we have cab services shut down. you get the idea here in boston.

they are clearing the sfreetreef civilians. law enforcement, military personnel in the streets of this major american city right now. >> pete, we'll check back in with you. we'll let you work the phones and deal with your other responsibilities. we appreciate this context that you keep bringing to the table here as we try to cover this carefully and accurately. we do want to show our viewers, especially those just joining us what has been going down through the night in the boston to watertown area of massachusetts. a huge chase. a shootout, a murder, a carjacking. and those who didn't wake up to the news this morning, were woken up to the sounds of gunfire and explosions in the night in watertown. let's take a look at some video taken from a few blocks away by somebody who captured some of these terrifying moments on camera.

>> all right. so, we, we get a sense of what's happened here. we know one suspect was killed and an ied was found attached to his body. the level of threat is really indescribable to the remaining suspect. but, that is the reason there is a massive lockdown under way. and a shelter in place call for the city of boston. and the experts that we have brought to the table, pete williams, michael chertoff, chief timany, philadelphia, former. they've never seen anything like this before. usually there's a ground zero. usually there's a crime scene. usually there's yellow tape or something separate you from what has happened. we're not separated this time. this time, there's 400,000 people that were at the heart of this for most of the night and now, an entire city.

is left waiting. waiting indoors, waiting to find out when they can deem themselves safe. with us now from watertown, massachusetts, nbc correspondent katy tur. right around the corner from where that shooting took place. the one we just showed you on video. katy? >> i can't tell you how weird it is, mika, to be out here and not see anybody but the media. i have been covering news for quite a while, mostly in new york city. you have seen scenes like this, hostage situations, man hnts and you're always getting people from the community coming and ask you what's going on and wanting updates. the streets are empty. just look down the street right here. you're not seeing anybody moving. 8:30 or so in the morning on a friday, people would usually be going to work and outside their house and it's not too cold out here right now, a mildly pleasant day for boston in april and it's just so odd to see this, this area completely

empty. i can only imagine what boston proper must look like right now. give you an idea where we are. just up the street and around the corner is where that shootout took place early, early this morning. it's when they cornered the two suspects and they started opening fire. you saw that clip a second ago with all of that massive gunfire. what we do know now is that the first suspect, the older brother was shot and killed. this is the guy in the black hat. and then his younger brother, the guy in the white hat ran him over when he was fleeing and getting out of here. when police approached the guy in the black hat, the dead suspect on the ground, they found that he was wearing an ied, an improvised explosive device on his person. i don't know the status in terms of where we are on his body. i would assume it's still here. you have to have atf agents make sure that the bomb wasn't going to go off. they were throwing explosives out the windows. a lot of undetonated devices.

that could be what's happening up there. we're hearing reports across boston of police doing controlled detonations of devices. so, a lot of tense moments here right now. you have a whole community here in watertown that is waking up and seeing their town on the news. they're seeing reporters like me and you say, do not leave your house. stay inside. they have cops in full s.w.a.t gear coming to their doors knocking and finding out if anything is unusual. they're looking through backyards, through garages. this town is not just on lockdown, it feels like, well, it is on lockdown, it feels like it's undersiege in a sense just by one person. which can be such an unusual thing. just one person who ais on the loose and creating all of this, all of this drama. we've seen a few, a little bit more activity here in the past few hours. we saw a couple city buses full of police department officers coming through and military vehicles, but we haven't heard

anything. it's been very quiet. who qknows what is going on behind this police radius. >> katy tur on the scene. thank you so much. we'll check back in with you later. just looking at these pictures and listening to the different stories coming in overnight. first, the massive story, the one of the two suspects, one down, the other on the run, but also the side stories. the swath of destruction and terror that they have left in their wake, willie, between bombs that are being put under controlled detonations that they've left in their tracks, to the murder they committed on the campus of m.i.t. to what they might have left at the home where they lived. it is just about half past the hour. 8:30 on the east coast. i'm mika brzezinski along with willie geist. suburban communities and people in the entire city of boston are

being told to stay in their homes at this hour. one brother is dead and another on the run. these are the two suspects accused of the bombings that killed three people and injured 170 others just days ago at the boston marathon. >> after a night of shootouts and explosions, one m.i.t. police officer is dead. another officer is wounded seve severely. police confirms one of the brothers who is 26 years old is dead. he's the one in the black hat from that fbi surveillance video released at a press conference yesterday. the u.n. with in t the one in the -- the 26-year-old became a permanent resident of the united states in 2007. the suspect in the white hat remains at large, as i said. identified as 19-year-old dzhokhar tsarnaev. he is considered armed and extremely dangerous, something that goes without saying at this point. born in kyrgyzstan and they both apparently moved here to the united states with their family as around 2002.

as pete williams reports, their father worked in chechnya, which would leave one to believe that they lived for a while in chechnya. >> police are going door to door trying to find him. they are warning people to stay in their homes and not to let anybody in unless they are uniformed police officers. we have twitter photos that really show exactly how grave the situation and how people's lives in watertown and boston and newton and all the surrounding towns are being turned upside down. as you can see, s.w.a.t team members literally climbing over a shed in what looks like a lovely neighborhood. it all began, apparently, when the suspect tried to rob a 7-eleven, two of them, and then shot and killed, as i mentioned, an m.i.t. police officer. they shot him in the head. carjacked a mercedes suv keeping the car's owner at gunpoint and then later releasing the person

unharmed. police followed the car to watertown, massachusetts. the suspects apparently threw explosive devices from the car along the way. >> the older brother, the 26-year-old, deceased, tamerlan was apparently run over by his own brother when he fled and was killed when police approached his body. they discovered an ied strapped to his chest. he died later at the hospital. police say other unexploded devices been left behind. officials tell nbc news that the two suspects are residents of the united states. communities and colleges around the boston area on lockdown. in fact, now, the entire city of boston, as we just learned at a press conference a few moments ago. a shelter in place order which means, in effect, stay where you are and lock the doors for the entire city of boston. all told, almost 1 million people being asked to stay inside their homes with their doors locked. >> this area is literally being put into a grinding halt.

when you think about this from 20,000 feet or on a national scope. mass transit is shut down. all of mbta, amtrak from providence to boston is shut down, as well. even some low-level air space above boston is closed. as willie mentioned, everything is coming to a halt. m.i.t., emerson, boston college, umass, boston, berkeley, tufts, suffolk university, all closed today. no classes. >> mike barnicle, this is terrorism defined. you have 1 million people inside with the doors locked wondering if a suspect who was willing to take lives and take his own life is lurking in their neighborhood. >> indeed, willie. also an indication the shots that we have been showing, i think they're on screen now of

the mbta buses filled with state police or picking up state police. a long line of police vehicles in those buses. right now crossing the boston line into watertown right there at the arsenal mall area of watertown. an indication in the last 10 or 11 years since september 11th of the increased coordination and cooperation of various law enforcement agencies. federal, state and local. and you're seeing this to the great benefit of the public right now today, right in front of your eyes as we watch these police vehicles move in. you're seeing the benefits of this increased cooperation and, hopefully, it will have a successful result in the apprehension, hopefully alive, of this last suspect. but, you're right. none of us can conjure up, can imagine, can think of a situation similar to this where

an entire, an entire metropolitan area is is held in place. an entire city and the suburban ring, western towns around it, are just at a virtual standstill. >> i think it says a lot that michael chertoff who headed homeland security said the only thing he can remember coming close, he was not head of homeland security at the time, was 9/11. said they consider it on some cases but never took that step. that is how dramatic it is to shut down a city with a shelter in place order. >> there was 9/11 and to a smaller, lesser extent than i can recall being in the metropolitan area covering the d.c. sniper. there was a level of municipal fear and cfear and a smaller ara of a lockdown when they were trying to key in on the suspect. but that's far from what we're seeing here this morning.

>> all right. we are going to be joined by joe scar differe scarborough in just a moment. but the question is one on the minds in many in boston right now and certainly in the surrounding towns or anybody planning on taking a train to the area. how long can this last? how long can they lock down town upon town upon town? how long can the people of boston literally stay inside their homes? how long can businesses not open? how long can people not conduct business unusual? there must be, i'm going to hold back, but you get a sense from the governor and the law enforcement authorities who are dealing with this that they have a sense of what they're trying to do. and that they have a sense of certain areas that they need to cover and the hope is that they can get what they need to get done done, which is bring this guy in alive or keep him, if he kills himself, from killing

others. >> clearly law enforcement believes he's in within reach. they had him in their sights around 11:00 last night when they got into a firefight with him in which his older brother eventually perished. he took the car, drove away and later fled on foot. that leads you to believe he couldn't have gotten too terribly far away, but they're taking no chances. heavy security at logan airport, mbta, the trains, the buses, the t., which is the subway there in boston, shut down entirely. no activity inside boston and inside some of these other towns that we pointed out. newton, watertown, allston, brighton, no civilian activity outdoors. the only thing you'll see on the streets of those places are military vehicles and law enforcement personnel. that's the state of play right now in this case. this is a live picture, is that right, alex? a live picture in watertown. you can see, again, police

officers appear to be gathering behind a vehicle of some kind there. we don't know what that is. we have seen a lot of that kind of activity and, frankly, much heavier activity. armored personnel carriers making their way through the streets for an event that all started monday at 2:50 in the afternoon at the boston marathon at when those two bombs exploded taking the lives of three people there to watch a marathon and injuring well over 100 more from that point. law enforcement had said, it believes these two gentlemen, are the two involved in that bombing on monday. 10:20 last night, two men seen on surveillance tape holding up a 7-eleven in cambridge, mass, that set off this chain of events. 8:37 in the morning still looking for the younger of the two brothers. there was a statement put out, mika, right, by the city of boston. >> it's really, i've never seen

anything like this before. this is from the office a of the mayor and i'll read the words. citywide update. the city of boston is urging citywide shelter in place. as this investigation unfolds, we are advising all residents, citywide, to shelter in place. please understand we have armed and dangerous person or persons still at large and police actively pursuing every lead in this active emergency event. please, be patient and use common sense until this person or persons are apprehended. we will continue to update the public with more information as it becomes available. all mbta service remains suspended at this time. willie some of the obvious questions will be them honing in on where these two suspects lived. what is in their home, what they've left there, where they created these bombs and the explosive devices that they left strewn all over the streets from cambridge to watertown.

the ied that was attached to one of the, the dead suspect's body. what is left in their home? who might they have been working with? what pieces of explosive devices that were thrown in the streets still might detonate? they have controlled detonations going on. there are so many different layers of, to this emergency situation, that, clearly, the shelter in place order is the only option at this point. >> pete williams reported that the brothers live in cambridge, massachusetts. so, you can be assured that authorities have swept into their residence there. in fact, it is believed to be the street that was cleared out an hour or so ago norfolk street as authorities there look through the apartment and find whatever evidence they can find. we should get pete back on. i believe he's reporting there may be one other person of interest. i think he just reported that on "today" show. we'll swing him over. perhaps a relative of the two brothers. >> that will make sense given

the media update that was given from the office of the mayor. they made it clear that there was a person or persons still at large. at first, an abundance of caution. at the same time, you wonder how they put all these explosives together alone with no one knowing and if they were operating alone, they'll know that at some point. but at this point, the question is whether or not there are others involved and whether or not there will be other hot spots that turn into crime scenes in the hours to come, give on the fact that these two made a break for it and it turned into other chaos throughout the night and led to a shootout. filled with explosives and ultimately, the killing of one suspect in the streets of watertown in the dark of night. this, of course, hours before the murder of an m.i.t. police officer. so, police now dealing with the frustration of the killing of one of their own. and, also, the injuring of another. it is, it's still chaos,

literally. >> just to interrupt you for one second. pete williams now reporting that police believe they know where the suspect is located. >> okay. >> so, they've got a location. >> they believe they have his location. now, a question of how to treat someone who they know is not just willing to use arms, small arms, but also bombs and has allegedly used bombs and whose brother was wearing an improvised explosive device when he was killed last night. >> according to the faa, there is a no-fly zone over watertown right now. you looking at pete williams reports telling us they have a location for the suspect for people in boston, for people in the neighboring towns that have a shelter in place order in effect, for people where it is locked down. stay where you are. it is a matter of time if this information flushes out well. pete's information is always good. so, we'll hone in on the area of where this suspect is when law enforcement authorities are ready to tell us.

>> such a wide swath of boston is locked down. we don't want to report anything on that front. the police, at least, believe they know where he is. as soon as we have that pinned down, we'll let you know. >> okay. okay. 410 norfolk street at the house, we have a suspect in custody. this is a person, someone who is not a suspect at the time, has been taken into custody. so, again, backing up what the mayor's office said, shelter in place because they're looking for people, not one person, not one suspect and they have a person in custody who is not initially one of the two suspects in the bombing. >> again, this is probably that third person that pete was reporting about. perhaps a relative of the two brothers. pete is saying they know where suspect number two is located. >> two things going on. the area where this person was take into custody. there is a third person now who is a part of this story who has

been brought into custody. this person was not a suspect. not one of the two, not one of the black hat, white hat suspects in this double bombing in boston. but a third person who has now been brought into this story, brought into this case and is being held right now. there is also reports coming into us that they have the location of the second suspect. the man in the white hat, the man who escaped, eluded law enforcement authorities after a shootout in watertown in the dark of night. they have his location. we've got the entire city of boston being told to shelter in place. we've got watertown, belmont, newton and brighton and asking people to remain indoors. watertown locked down with a no-fly zone over waterton and mbta shut down and ama track shut down, but we are closer. we are potentially closer to figuring out where the end game is to this terrible, terrible case. >> this is strictly military

stuff now. you have a no-fly zone issued for the little town of watertown, massachusetts, population 32,000. you have law enforcement and military personnel streaming into the streets now and they believe, at least now, according to pete williams, they know where the suspect is. pete has pointed out many times this morning that as of about 10:15 last night, law enforcement did not know where these two guys were. it wasn't as if they were closing in on these two suspects. they did it to themselves by robbing a 7-eleven at 10:20. that was reported to police and then they allegedly went and murdered, as he sat in his cruiser, an m.i.t. police officer and then carjacked a black mercedes suv and held captive the driver of that car for 30 minutes before releasing the driver, unharmed. there was a police chase of that black suv that led to the firefight in which suspect number one, the one in the black hat, eventually was killed, but

not before being found with an ied on his body. that's why they're so concerned about this other suspect with the white hat. suspect number two. his brother had improvised explosive devices on him. they were throwing grenades and other explosive devices out of the car during the car chase. they don't know what they're dealing with suspect number two. that's why they're proceeding with such caution. >> they have a third suspect in custody, potentially a third suspect. this third person very important to note, taken in custody from the home where the two suspects live. willie, talking about the two suspects and pete williams and other reports coming into us. they are brothers dzhokhar tsarnaev described by the fbi as wearing the white hat. a resident of cambridge, born in kyrgyzstan. his brother, the deceased, tamerlan born in russia and he,

according to reports, became a legal permanent resident in 2007. and they came with their family to the u.s. in 2002 or 2003 and now a third person taken into custody from their home. so, the story is expanding. there are now three people involved, potentially, one deceased of the two suspects. >> one deceased. but we should point out, the city remains on lock down. >> incredible. >> the city of boston and all the other communities. listen to law enforcement and authorities there because we have not pinpointed where this suspect is. >> as you can imagine, former homeland security commissioners and terrorism experts, our own pete williams, nobody has ever covered or worked a scene like this before. because it's never happened. it's unprecedented. you have an entire city basically put in fear. we have five other remaining

towns locked down. we have one town, the scene of a shootout that doesn't even compare to the wild west and we have two suspects throwing bombs out of the window of their car murdering anybody in their path. so, again, an unprecedented sense of terror in the boston area. joe scarborough joining us, once again. joe? >> you know, mika, it is unprecedented what is going on in boston. mike, earlier, was talking about the fact that this is really the first time since 9/11, that boston has seen anything remotely like this, or the country n deed. think back over this past week and it does remind you of the weeks that followed september 11th. we first got the news, of course, on a beautiful monday afternoon. patriots day in boston. that there had been bombs that had been set off at the end of the boston marathon. that was shock enough. the next day out of washington, d.c., out of mississippi, we got

the news that letters that were laced with ricin had been sent to washington. had been sent to a u.s. senator and the president of the united states. again, parallels with those weeks following september 11th. wednesday night, a massive explosion in west texas. investigators still trying to figure out what caused that. the preliminarily talked about it being a crime scene. and then, of course, last night and early into the morning, we all awakened to shootings and this news, the terrible news of the m.i.t. police officer shot in his car. and it has been an extraordinary week. we have been face-to-face with evil starting on monday and this is how it's ending. mika? >> joe, this is why boston is now on high alert and why there are locked towns in effect. we are now hearing and this is unfolding quickly before our eyes. we had talked about one person in custody at the home of the

two brothers and a second has been taken into custody, again, at the same location. at the home where these two brothers, the two suspects in the boston marathon bombing were living and we have at least three dozen fbi agents on the scene of where they lived. securing the area. two ambulances standing by. god knows what they had in the house or the home or the apartment where they lived. again, they're not characterizing these two people as under arrest, but just as in custody. and we've got a scene now that is being skeecured. that, of course, along with the trail of destruction that the two suspects left in their wake with bombs and explosives strewing the streets. controlled detonations taken place, as well as stories of terror and even casualties and injuries. these two suspects meant to hurt people. they meant to do more and they have taken an entire part of our

country and one of the best cities in the world and put them in a state of terror. law enforcement authorities are doing the best they can and they're doing the only thing they can, which is telling people to stay inside until they get the situation under control. >> let's bring in nbc national news analyst michael lighter, been with all morning. lots changed since last time we talked to you. to repeat the information we have in. two people in custody, not under arrest, in custody at 410 norfolk street in cambridge. on the scene more than three dozen fbi agents. they've secured the area, they say, there are, in fact, two ambulances standing by. what do you make of the new information? >> well, i very much like how you catched it, willie. unsurprising when they went to this house they would take whoever is there in custody, not under arrest. they have to question them. they have to secure the house and they have to inspect the house to see if there are other weapons and they have to get

information about the two people that they know are suspects. as mike chertoff said before and we went through a lot together, but this is unprecedented. you have to go back to 9/11 and the scale of what they, the fbi in boston is dealing with right now is really quite amazing. the only other piece i would put out and everybody has heard this before, but in situations like this, a tremendous amount of false information. we are trying to tread very, very carefully and only report and comment on those things that really have been confirmed by officials. >> well, in some ways, we're talking about at least two terrorists. and they've gotten what they wanted. an international event with people from countries, 100 countries around the world, an iconic american event, the oldest marathon in the world and, literally, changing its legacy forever. getting that national, international plat foform of ter

and as pete williams was reporting as this transformed overnight these two were not being closed in on by fbi and the military and officials in massachusetts and there was not some sort of chase or stakeout going on. it appears that they saw their pictures were everywhere and for whatever reason, decided to make a chaotic, brazen run for it. they robbed a 7-eleven and murdered an m.i.t. police officer and carjacked someone and then as they were being chased, almost as if to want to be chased, they were throwing bombs out of their car and the shootout that took place in watertown last night and we have the video from someone who was nearby who captured the horrifying sounds of guns and possibly explosives. the shootout that took place left one suspect dead. we don't know how he died, but it led to a chaotaic situation

in which the other suspect literally drove over his body. and when law enforcement officials approached the dead suspect's body, they discovered he had an ied attached to it. these two men were setting out to terrorize a huge portion of our country on an international platform, joe, and they've done that. >> mika, though, you're exactly right. this news exploded throughout the night in boston and into the early morning this friday morning because of mistakes they made last night because of the recklessness. because they robbed a convenience store. because they shot a police officer. they did, they hijacked a mercedes. they couldn't have drawn more attention to themselves if they had tried. that said, they spent most of yesterday afternoon looking at images of themselves that the fbi released in the afternoon and that other people released on social network sites across,

across boston. and across the world. so, there is no doubt that they were reckless in the early evening. and into the night. but, you just have to wonder, mika, and willie whether or not that was prompted by a sense of desperation in seeing their images all over twitter, all over facebook, all over the internet, all over the world. >> there's a defiance that comes into the mind of a terrorist. and the fact that one of them, at least one of them had an ied strapped to his body really does put him, him in a category that is, that is something that we have a hard time getting our arms around in this country. yet, we have to. as we look at these pictures. there is this incredible photograph that was put on twitter of a beautiful little neighborhood with white picket fence and a shed and a beautiful

new england home and then two s.w.a.t team members perched on top of the shed pointed at the other house. you get a sense of, we're actually not going to show it, again, because it gives too many clues about tactical maneuvers, but you get a sense of how beautiful american neighborhoods and beautiful, peaceful, peaceful communities have been rocked by this terror that has been xhcarried out by two suspects, potentially more. there are two people in custody taken from the home where the suspects lived. but we want to be very careful because they're not considered suspects. they're just in custody, maybe to be questioned. maybe just because they lived there, too. maybe they lived in a separate apartment. but at this point, law enforcement authorities have no choice. the military has no choice but to gather everybody they can and also clear out their home and figure out what they left in their wake. could they have planted bombs somewhere. could they have been leaving

something behind that might detonate? there are controlled detonations taking place in their wake from the chase that ensued overnight because they were throwing bombs out of the window. this is unbelievable. and, again, the people that we had on our coverage throughout the morning from homeland security secretaries to former police chiefs to police commissioners to experts in national security, they haven't seen a situation like this, a crime scene like this before, willie. >> according to our reporting, these are two men woo have been in this country for have been in this country for at least a decade. came here in 2002 or 2003. they came here as essentially boys. one of them as a teenager. they grew up in this area. they grew up in cambridge. some of their high school classmates being interviewed today saying they were just another guy. never seemed suspicious or strange. how oft aen do we hear that? some of these high school classmates said when the photos

came out yesterday, they were stunned. those were two people they recognized from their high school in cambridge, massachusetts. these are not people who flew in a month ago or a year ago, these are people that lived in that community for over a decade, perhaps. >> they lived among us. they lived in the community and they grew up knowing everybody who they went to school with. it's part of now who we are as americans to not know if we have terrorists living in our community. if that all pans out to be true, which the reports appear to be accurate. these two men lived among us and then carried out the most dreadful act of terror that we've seen since 9/11. >> mike barnicle still on the phone with us in boston. what a breathtaking turn of events from a beautiful monday patriots day morning with the baseball game and a marathon, to this moment coming up on 9:00 in

boston. this morning on friday. >> yeah. and the speed of, and the pace of the events as they have occurred nearly, supposedly, hopefully culminate aing now and their knowledge of where the suspect is and hopefully he will surrender. he will be captured alive. he will be able to retain valuable information. but the thing that really strikes me, willie, is that no matter who you are or what you do, there is really no where for anyone to hide any more, given our, given our media culture, our social network culture. they could not hide. you cannot hide. >> no. you can't. and yet it is also, i'm just awe struck by what has had to happen to close in. we do have information coming in that the suspect that they were looking for, the man in the white hat, they may have his location.

they may have a handle on this guy. still a question and a mystery as to what he might do. but, hopefully, joe, we're getting closer. >> we are getting closer and there has been a debate earlier this week about whether we should have more closed circuit cameras across cities like boston, washington, new york, atlanta. i think what we've seen, mika, and willie over this past week is the fact that we do have cameras everywhere, but they're in the hands of our citizens who have all chipped in, all joined in, all helped the fbi and other intel agencies to help track these men down. track these terrorists down. and play the large role in where we are this morning and now, mika, willie, mike, we just can hope and pray that it all works out for our friends in boston. mika? >> what we're going to do here on msnbc is stay on this story. we won't leave it for a second with the help of pete williams